M.J. Scott's Blog, page 33
March 27, 2013
A snippet
Random 6 days to go snippet!
Maybe that was why Holly and Lily had warned me off Fen. Because he could charm and snare an unwary woman. Well, charm me he may have but I would do my best to avoid the trap. That would just be putting myself at risk of an altogether different kind.
March 26, 2013
A heroine with fire in her blood
Saskia…
7 days to go!
March 25, 2013
A troubled hero
A Fen song…
and you know, Robbie has a touch of the Fen’s about him too!
March 23, 2013
And our heroine
Every good hero needs a heroine to turn his world upside down. Meet Saskia. Metalmage. Fed up with everyone trying to make her do things their way. Looking for trouble…and about to find it.
March 21, 2013
Steamy
I’m over at Coffeetime Romance today as part of the celebration of their cool new steampunk area. Come and talk about steampunk and gaslight fantasy and you could win Shadow Kin or Blood Kin!
March 20, 2013
Let’s get this party started!
So, I guess with just 2 weeks until Iron Kin hits the shelves, it’s time for some meet the book posts.
So, here, this is Fen….
Sometimes a writer’s life is tough…real tough. I mean, months and months with this guy in my head. Kind of…distracting ; )
March 18, 2013
Last sneak peek!
Chapter Two of Iron Kin is now up on the website. And for those of you biting your nails…only two weeks and a day to go.
March 16, 2013
ARC winners
The winners in the Iron Kin ARC giveaway are
Sarah Hill and Mandy Pickering!
Gals, email me mel @ mjscott.net with your addresses and the ARCs will be in the mail.
March 9, 2013
It’s hot…let’s give something away!
Summer, which technically ended nine days ago, is hanging on like grim death here in Melbourne. We’re currently in the middle of what could turn out to be the longest streak of consecutive days above 30 (86) in a row. I think we’re currently on day five or six…with at least four more expected. Outside, the sky is the very definition of sultry…
Tempers are short and the nights are long and hot. Everyone wants long cool drinks and airconditioning, swimming pools and ice-cream. So, in the spirit of maybe the weather gods look kindly on giveaways, I am trying to improve the general mood by offering two of these little beauties up for grabs.
Two get ‘em while they’re hot, ARCs of Iron Kin (out in just three and a half weeks!).
To enter just email me, mel @ mjscott.net with “It’s hot, I need an ARC” in the title to enter. Those of you in the northern hemisphere will just have to imagine the heat. Or come up with another creative subject line : )
It’s a long weekend here, so I’ll draw the winners early next week! When it will still be hot. Sigh. Pass the ice cream.
February 23, 2013
Mmmm cheesecake
One of my favourite desserts has always been cheesecake. Sweet, tangy, creamy. What’s not to like? But in my family (and I suspect most Aussie families), the cheesecake of choice (other than the ubiquitous frozen Sara Lee variety) to make at home is cold-set. Quicker to make plus no oven equals a cooler kitchen in summer which is when we tended to have them. Baked cheesecake to me has always been a bit hit and miss. Too easy for it to be dry and heavy rather than light like the cold-set versions.
But then I went to New York and had several pieces of divine New York style baked cheesecake (including the class Junior’s) and decided one day I should attempt to make some. Which led to me putting it on my foodie challenge list earlier this year. Yesterday was my crit group meeting and it was my turn to bring dessert so I decided to give it a go. I’d pinned a couple of cheesecake recipes on my pinterest food board which all sound delicious but I decided to go with a classic Martha Stewart one (as I figured it would be well tested).
I did hack the crust as one of my crit group peeps has a wheat intolerance and I wanted an alternative crust. After cruising la internets for a while, I decided to go with a make-it-up-myself nut crust. Which translated as hazelnut meal, blanched almonds and a few salted cashews. I whizzed up the almonds and cashews in my food processor until they were breadcrumbish (same as you would for cookies/biscuits in a cookier/biscuit crust) and ended up with about a cup in total. I mixed that with about 1/3 cup not firmly packed brown sugar and 80 grams or so of melted butter. I pre-baked it for about 10mins at 375 then let it cool. I suspect you could also cold set it but the nuts went a nice toasty gold in the oven (watch nuts, they go from toasted right to BURNED in an eyeblink and no one wants burned nuts (minds out of the gutter, people!).
After that it was follow the recipe all the way. No, wait, I lie, I used half low fat cream cheese and half regular as a sop towards dietary responsibility : )
Ready to cook
My oven is fan forced so I lowered the temp a little but it still only took about an hour and twenty minutes to be just set in the middle (and getting a little too coloured on top…one rack lower next time!) rather than the 1 3/4 hours suggested in the recipe, so it’s a case of watch and know thy oven I guess.
This is what it looked like straight out of the oven:
All cooked
As I said, slight too gold on top but not quite as gold as it actually looks here (late night cell photo, sorry).
I let it cool in the oven out of the water bath for 20 mins with the door open a bit (based on a tip from my sil) and then let it cool a bit longer out of the oven before popping it in the fridge to chill overnight. Technically you’re meant to let it cool most of the way before putting it in the fridge but it was getting late at this stage (note to self, need to bake cheesecakes in the afternoon, not at night). There was a bit of condensation on the plastic wrap in the morning but it didn’t seem to be harmed really. I just changed the wrap.
I headed off to crit group a little nervously (as one is with new recipes) but it came out of the tin nicely.
Ready to slice
And it looked pretty tasty with a bit of passionfruit and cream…
Ready to eat
That’s the first slice where the crust crumbled a little. It stayed whole for the others. And I’m happy to report that everyone declared it yummy (including me). It would be fine without anything on the side but is a classic enough lightly lemony cheesecake that you could serve it with almost any toppings. You could also add spices to the crust (ground ginger or cinnamon) depending on what flavour cheesecake you were making.
I’m currently experimenting with how it freezes as I didn’t want to have half a cheesecake sitting in my fridge, so I sliced it up, wrapped each slice in gladwrap and foil per Mr. Google’s suggestions and popped them in the freezer. I’ll try a piece tonight to see how it defrosts.
So there you go, part one of the cooking challenge is a success!
