P.J. Schnyder's Blog, page 11

Guiness Chocolate cupcakes with Irish Whiskey ganache and Bailey’s frosting

First tasted these years ago and then my friend, Lindsey, was kind enough to provide the recipe. I messed with it a bit, admittedly. And these are probably the most complicated cupcakes I’ve ever baked but they’re simply made in 3 stages and not actually difficult at all. Trust me, the effort is worth it.

(original recipe from SmittenKitchen.com)

Ingredients:

Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes

1 cup stout (such as Guinness)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

2/3 cup sour cream

Irish Whiskey Ganache Filling

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate

2/3 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons butter, room temperature

1 to 2 teaspoons Irish whiskey (optional)

Baileys Frosting

3 to 4 cups confections sugar

1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperatue

3 to 4 tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream (substitute milk or heavy cream for non-drinkers)

Special equipment: 1-inch round cookie cutter or apple corer

Cupcake Directions:

(can be made up to 1 week in advance and frozen until ready to serve).

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners.

In a heavy, large saucepan, bring 1 cup Guiness stout and 1 cup butter to simmer over medium heat. Whisk in cocoa powder until mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and allow cool slightly, whisking every couple of minutes during the cooling process.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Use a clean whisk to thoroughly mix these and prevent streaks in the batter from the baking soda.

In another large bowl, beat eggs and sour cream until well-blended. Add cooled stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine.

Add flour mixture a little at a time while beating briefly on slow speed.

Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way.

Bake at 350 until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes completely on a rack.

Filling Directions:

Coarse chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. In a small saucepan, heat heavy cream until just simmering and immediately pour over chocolate. Let sit for one minute, then stir until smooth. (Note: If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate, heat mixture in a double-boiler to gently melt what remains. 20 seconds in the microwave, watching carefully, will also work.) Add the butter and whiskey (optional) and stir until combined.

Fill the cupcakes…

Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (refrigeration will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes).

Meanwhile, using 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. Note: You want to go most of the way down the cupcake but not cut through the bottom — aim for 2/3 of the way. A slim spoon or grapefruit knife will help you get the center out. Set them aside to re-top the cupcakes after filling.

Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake, dividing the ganache evenly between 24 cupcakes. (A large freezer bag with a tiny bit of the corner cut off can also substitute for a piping bag)

Once filled, replace the tops to each cupcake. (Possibly remove some of the inner cake to allow the top to sit even on the top of the cupcake.)

Frosting Directions:

Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes until very light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time.

When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys (or milk) and whip until combined. If this has made the frosting too thin beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.

Ice and decorate the cupcakes.

Birthday Giveaway!

Yup, it’s my birthday tomorrow. I’m incredibly lucky because I have my boyfriend spoiling me all weekend.

I plan to pop into the kitchen and have lots of fun cooking up a bunch of recipes I’ve been wanting to try. For example, I saw an Instagram photo by Heather Osborn of a tasty looking chicken stew with dumplings, the big fluffy dumplings I love. I so want to try to adapt my sourdough to create a sourdough recipe for stew dumplings. Thus, Friday night dinner will be chicken stew with sourdough dumplings.

Breakfast on Saturday will be my sourdough pull apart bread. Lots of cinnamon and sugar involved in this. I should probably make some scrambled eggs and fresh salsa to make sure I don’t crash off all the carbs.

For my actual birthday, I’m baking myself these incredible cupcakes I’d tried at someone else’s birthday party years ago. everyth!ngshiny gave me the base recipe for these Guiness chocolate cupcakes filled with Irish Whiskey chocolate ganache topped with Bailey’s Irich Creme frosting. I’ve been wanting to try to bake them for years. Now, I’m gonna.

For dinner on my birthday, I’m making my lasagna. When I say my lasagna, usually this entails ground beef, pork and veal layered with a tasty tomato sauce and fresh roasted garlic plus thin sliced roasted zucchini. There’s plenty of riccota cheese, liberally seasoned with fresh herbs, and lots of shredded mozzarella cheese on top. Plus, I like to serve a bit of alfredo sauce on the side to spoon over the top for added richness. *bliss*

Both my boyfriend and my roomie have volunteered to eat all that food, which makes me super happy. Otherwise, there’s no reason to cook. But I can’t share all this yummy goodness with all of you.

Boo.

So, I decided to put together a giveaway. See this lovely pile of books? Yup. Follow the instructions for Rafflecopter for chance(s) to win. (Open to US & Canada) Included in this giveaway is a signed copy of GIMME SHELTER, an anthology of the zombie apocalypse featuring stories by many of my good friends and my sci-fi short, REMEMBER MY NAME.

Contest ends at midnight EDT on September 22.

I’m grateful to be celebrating another birthday and looking forward to the opportunity to accomplish many things in the year to come.

xoxo

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tools for Series Continuity

After work on several other projects, I’m returning to complete the draft of book 3 in the Terra’s Guardians series. Book 3 presents a lot more challenges for me as a writer, not only as compared to the previous two but also as compared to the other projects I’ve done this year. This is a major factor in why it’s taken me so damn long to complete!

HEART’S SENTINEL was my debut novel.  I’d created a world with series potential and had a story element that could arc over several books while the main plot line focused on my hero and heroine. And then I had RED’S WOLF, written in the same “world” but set in a different location in that world, introducing a new hero and heroine and an entirely new supporting cast, with small mentions of communication with the characters in the first book as well as carrying through the common story element.

Book 3, tentatively titled FULL DISCLOSURE, will have a lot of things going into it. I’ll be interweaving the elements from both the River Gap Pride and the Glacier Valley Pack, as well as adding much more information on the mysterious “hunters” in this book. I want to make this book enjoyable for readers new to my series, so the main story arc between my hero and heroine will stand alone. However, I want to have continuity in the world I built and also some ties back into the previous books that readers of my previous books will enjoy.

I have plans, I tell you, Big Plans.

And with plans, it’s best to map things out. For the first time, it’s not just about the outline for the book, it’s about keeping track of key details from the first two plus adding the new details from the third. I need a way to track my series, a series bible, some might call it. There’s examples out there on the internetz for those of you with strong Google-fu.For me, I’m sitting here with a few examples and trying to decide what things I personally want to track as I build my own.

Here’s my list so far:

Book: Title and placement in the series
Character profiles – names, basic descriptions, pack/pride affiliation, and key defining aspects of their personalities. (eg Jason of RED’S WOLF was a lone wolf)
Secondary Characters – names, basic descriptions, pack/pride affiliation, key defining aspects of their personality I wanted to develop and any notes on what I wanted to do with their own story (eg. Mack of HEART’S SENTINEL, my editor really wants to know Mack’s story and I want to write it too)
Setting – where? pack/pride territory? city?
Hunter Development – what key information was revealed about the hunters in each book, and to who
Notes on things readers mentioned they wanted to learn more about

If you’re a writer, do you keep a series bible? What things do you track from book to book?

DragonCon!

Before anyone yells at me for scampering around yet another con: FIGHTING KAT is submitted. Yup, it’s out of my hands now, my friends. I’ll keep you posted as I hear anything, but mostly, I’m going to be writing more stuff so that I’m not eating my hair waiting for the answer. LOL.

And also, a super sekrit project was also submitted to an equally sekrit, sekrit place/person.

So, what am I doing this weekend? DragonCon!

Really, the main focus of this con is to have fun with good friends. No really, this is important, because my friends are important to me.

It’ll be a weekend of cosplay and geekery, gaming and fandom. There’ll be a lot of people-watching, some crazy shenanigans and definitely a need for adult supervision. (I think in some cases, I qualify as the adult supervision. this could be bad.)

That said, I do have a few panels I’ll be on but there’s still plenty of quality time there for friendships

PJ’s Schedule at DragonCon


Friday:

8:30 PM to 9:30 PM The Retro-Cast: Steampunk Podcasting & More (Westin International BC)

10PM to 11PM Steamy Steampunk: Paranormal Romance and other Readings (Westin International BC)


Monday:

11:30 AM to 12:30 PM Steampunk 101 (Hyatt Embassy D-F)

BITE ME … coming summer 2013

PJ at the Peter Pan Statue in London

I am very excited to announce that Carina Press has acquired my new paranormal romance novella, BITE ME.

This story is the first in a brand new series. Shape shifters! fighting  Zombies! in London!

Yup, it’s a fun and action packed paranormal romance I truly enjoyed writing. I hope you’ll all enjoy reading it.

And that’s not all folks. Carina Press has also contracted books 2 and 3 of the series based on proposal. Yes! My very first 3 book deal! *happy dance*

Can you tell I’m insanely excited? Woo!

from Authors After Dark in New Orleans

It’s a whirl of activity here at Authors After Dark 2012 in New Orleans. A wrap-up post is on its way, but in the meantime, here’s some videos I did during the week!

and

plus

Authors After Dark 2012 – PreCon Madness

Seems like just last week I was gearing up for a con…oh wait…yeah, I was.

There’s a big difference between a 32,000 person anime/Japanese culture convention and a 400 person reader convention and it’s not just the number of people. Mostly, it’s the interests of the people attending. Sure there’s overlap, but for the most part, they’re completely different worlds.

At Otakon, I loved meeting fellow otaku and walking through the crowded Baltimore Convention Center people watching. I watched anime, sat in a workshop to build my very own steampunk ray gun and rocked out to a Japanese Jpop/idol concert. Aside from my panel, I was another scampering fan girl.

At my panel, I was jumping on and off stage, running through a huge audience, giving random hugs and generally being extremely hyper. But, because we only had an hour and had over 500 people, there wasn’t a lot of time for one on one chatting.

At Authors After Dark, I’m a Featured Author focused on making myself available to my readers, meeting new ones, and doing what I can to contribute to the awesome social atmosphere. It’s more intimate and relaxed. There’s a sitting room to get a quiet moment. There’s laid back luncheons. And of course, there’s relaxation time with drinks at the bar. The panels are smaller and much more open to round table discussions.

I look forward to seeing everyone there and hope you’ll say Hi to me. I promise, I don’t bite (at least, not anyone but my boyfriend) and I absolutely love to meet new people.

Even if you’re not attending the entire convention, consider coming to the open to public Book Signing event on Saturday at 2pm.

Royal Sonesta Hotel

300 Bourbon Street

New Orleans, LA 70130

Tel: 504-586-0300

PJ’s Schedule at Authors After Dark  in New Orleans


Thurs:

Sexy: “Were” to Draw the Line? 1pm

Reading: Shifters 4pm

Guess the Author by the Sex Scene 5pm


Friday:

Gaslight/Victorian/Steampunk 2pm

Steampunk Tea 4pm


Saturday:

Booksigning Event 2pm

Otakon 2012

Going to be at Otakon this weekend?

Otakon is one of my absolute favorite conventions. It’s the one I’ve been attending for about 10 years now.

It is the convention for the otaku generation, a con featuring anime and manga, Japanese culture and gaming plus much more. There’s even a couple of steampunk workshops and panels this year. Attendance is around 25,000 to 30,000 full weekend registered attendees – much larger than most of the other cons I attend and yet still a very fun atmosphere.

I’m planning to watch a lot of anime and hit the dealer’s floor to do some classic otaku shopping. Might not buy much, but there’ll be so very much to consider and covet.

But that’s not all!

Oh yes. Stephanie “Flash” Burke and I are teaming up for a second year to give our Ladies’ Choice: A Guide to Hentai panel. We had 500+ attendees last year and hope to put on a great panel again this year with lots of fun and giveaways.

Were you there for our panel last year? There’ll be new clips to share.

Coming to our panel for the first time? Trust me, it’s crazy fun.

What exactly is our panel going to show you? Here’s our description:

An exploration of hentai that girls may find fun, even empowering for women. Tired of the tentacle rape guys show us to shock and appall? This panel provides a brief intro to hentai terms/genres to help navigate the sea of choices out there, then dives right into the fun, frisky and fantastic. A little bit of sweetness, a dash of steamy ground and pound and a taste of yaoi action to round out the hour.

In fact, here’s highlight’s from our panel at Otakon 2011 to give you an idea of what is in store for you this year:

Adventures in Sourdough: Pull Apart Bread (Monkey Bread)

This recipe is adapted from Food Snots: Cinnamon and Sugar Pull Apart Bread and when I saw the original recipe I thought to myself -> Must convert this to a sourdough recipe!

After all, I love to find new ways to use my sourdough starter.

I had a vague idea of how I wanted to prep the dough using the sourdough starter and I also wanted to keep the dough slightly sweet the way the original recipe is designed. I took my idea over to Tee Morris and Philippa Ballantine’s kitchen and made test ran the recipe for the very first time. The results? Everyone survived and even had great things to say about the taste. We had success!

Recipe:

Sponge Ingredients:

1 cup sourdough starter (room temperature)

1/2 cup milk

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

Pour the sourdough starter in a large bowl. Add milk and vegetable oil. Mix well.

Fold in the flour and sugar. The sponge will be fairly stiff. Cover and leave to rise overnight at room temperature.

 

Dough Ingredients:

1 cup flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

Combine dry ingredients, otherwise the baking soda could leave streaks in your dough.

Fold in ½ cup of the flour mixture into the sponge mixture, and combine well.

Put the dough on a well-floured surface or in a big bowl and knead well. Sprinkle the remaining flour mixture as needed, whenever you feel the dough get sticky under your palm. Actual amount of the flour mixture needed will vary depending on ambient humidity, etc. (Hey, it’s bread, what did you expect?)

Continue working until the dough is smooth and elastic. It should not be so tacky it sticks to your fingers (like chewing gum). Set aside to rest while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Filling Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

4 Tbsp. butter, melted

Mix together the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a small bowl. Set aside.

Grease a small baking dish or loaf pan.

On a large, floured surface, roll out the dough in a rough rectangle approximately 1/4 inch thick. Brush the melted butter over the dough, being sure to brush to the very edges. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over the dough.

Using a shape knife or pizza cutter, cut the dough into equal sized strips (about 2 to 2 1/2 inches wide). Then cut the strips into equal sized squares.

Stack the squares on top of each other in small piles and place the piles in the greased pan on their side. The effect is prettier if the squares are unevenly stacked. Take any sugar that fell off squares and sprinkle over the top and around the sides of dough. Drizzle any left over melted butter along the sides of the dough.

Cover the dough for another 10-15 minutes to rise at room temperature. They should increase in size visibly.

Meanwhile pre-heat oven to 350F.

When ready, place the pan in the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until the square edges are golden brown.  You might want to place a baking sheet under the loaf pan in case any sugar mixture drips over the sides.

When Do Authors Need ID?

Someday, I hope to walk into a book store and see my own books on the shelves. I hope to stop by the front desk and see if they’d like to have me sign their stock.

From what I understand, there’s no ID check. They just figure, only the author would want to sign their own books. This always made me wonder, what if they did ask for proof that I am who I say I am in order to have me sign my books?

Especially for authors writing under pen names, I’ve often wondered what authors should do. Should they carry a copy of one of their book contracts showing that they wrote and own the copyright to their books when they attend functions like these? I can’t think of any other proof off the top of my head.

I also do a lot of travel for the day job and when travelling internationally have been asked some detailed questions. (Perhaps I look to be a shady personality) So let’s consider a hypothetical conversation:

Passport official: Reason for visit?
Me: Business
Nature of the business? I’m doing a book signing (squee!)
You’re an author? Yes
Where will this book signing occur? Are you publicized as one of the authors signing?
Well, I am, under my pen name…

Seems far fetched, I know. However, I have had this level of detailed questioning occur for the day job in which the last two questions were – what office is your client site and are you registered with their office as an expected guest. I doubt the passport official followed up to check, but they did ask to see if I started getting nervous.

My passport is up for renewal and I still travel internationally for my day job as well as on vacation. Someday I’d love to travel for author-related stuff. Do I list my pen name under the section “Are you know by other names?”

I doubt it’ll ever be a hugely important thing, but it’s still an interesting point to consider.