Fiona McIntosh's Blog, page 3

CHEWY CHOCOLATE BROWNIES

These are not meant to be fancy-pants treats but a simple, delicious indulgence so you don’t need exquisite, expensive chocolate or to fuss about salted or unsalted butter. Go to your pantry/fridge and use what you find.

INGREDIENTS

85g butter

225g dark chocolate – 70% is ideal

¾ cup soft brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract or paste

2 large eggs

¼ cup plain flour

½ cup toasted, chopped almonds (or similar)

½ cup dried cranberries (or similar)

I realise everyone has their own preferences so how you make up that cup of nuts or fruit is entirely up to you. I like almonds and cranberries but you may prefer walnuts and raisins. Or you may not like dried fruit and prefer a cup of hazelnuts. Or you may not want nuts and prefer just chopped apricots or similar.

MAKE YOUR BROWNIES

Approach with energy. This is an easy but hand beaten recipe. Follow the instructions carefully because as I’ve discovered, the secret is in the vigorous hand beating. If you’re lazy about it the brownie mix won’t look silky and voluptuous before it’s baked and then you’ve already doomed yourself to a crumbly version.

Preheat the oven to 350/180

Line an 8-inch square pan with parchment

In a medium saucepan and over a low heat melt the butter.

Add the chocolate (faster if chopped) and stir until it is melted and smooth.

Remove from the heat

Stir in the sugar and vanilla until combined.

Beat in the eggs by hand one at a time.

Add the flour and stir with determination until your mix yields to your supremacy and becomes smooth and glossy. It will begin to pull away from the side of the pan. This is going to take a minimum of one minute so go for it. Time yourself or count slowly but don’t cheat. It’s going to look odd at first, as though it’s separating and then like nasty sand but just keep going for it and ultimately by the end of your determined minute you’ll be amazed at the thick and glossy mix you’re suddenly rewarded with. If you don’t want lacklustre, cakey brownies this is the crucial step.

Stir in the chopped nuts and your fruit or whatever you’ve chosen to add.

Pile your brownie mix into your lined pan and it should look like this…slick, thick, glossy.

Bake until the middle just gives/is almost set. This will be no more than 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow the brownie to cool fully in the pan (as it will keep cooking).

I could tell you that your fabulous brownies will stay delicious for nearly a week and will certainly freeze but why would I when I know they’ll be swallowed as soon as you’ve sliced them into neat chunks? If you can be bothered they look chic when dusted with icing sugar and I’m sure could turn into an amazing dessert with a ganache, or indeed as a mix in to jazz up ice cream. Personally I can barely wait for them to cool and despite my own advice I usually start hacking away from minutes out of the oven … but they are worth waiting for. Enjoy!

Here it is…

The Tailor’s Girl is a lush story set around London’s Savile Row at the end of the Great War and beginning of the jazz age.

It’s diehard romantic, heartbreaking, tense and I hope a winning read for your summer break, your Christmas stocking, or simply your end of year escape. It is released on October 23 by PenguinRandom House and I have to tell you I loved writing this story. Hope it makes you sigh, cry, fly away with it.

For anyone who likes to dig a bit deeper and learn the stories that drive the story, I’ll start blogging soon about the inspiration, background and research that lives behind this novel.

Magnificent German cover for The Lavender Keeper

So exciting!

Hitting British Stores for June

Very excited at the release of The Lavender Keeper in Britain. Beautiful cover!

Mothers’ Day

Just in case you’re struggling for the perfect, easy to find gift, how about a copy of The Lavender Keeper and The French Promise tied up with purple ribbon and a sprig of fresh Lavender? The books are currently available in all department stores and good book stores. And if you want, I’ll send a signed bookplate to your mum if you send me an email with an address and name to dedicate the book to. That would be my pleasure. Also, you could take your mum to Paris as your final flourish if you enter The French Promise competition for five nights in my favourite city in the world, staying at the hotel that the characters do in the story. It’s a beautiful spot! Happy Mother’s Day to all. Fx

April 2014 Popular Fiction Masterclass is launched!

Wow, I can’t keep up with all of you amazing writers around Australia. I haven’t even hosted the April 2013 class and September’s class is full and I have opened up the April 2014 class to cope with the enquiries. Thank you to everyone who has shown such interest.

Registrations are open and I will be contacting everyone who has already put a hand in the air for a seat at my table. There are now a dozen places left for April next year and interested people should feel free to email me via this website and I will get back to asap with details.

We will kick it off on Thursday, April 24 through April 28, 2014. If you want more details of what the course covers, please click through to workshops (above).

As with the previous two, this Popular Fiction Masterclass will be held in South Australia.

Melbourne Airport

This was an emotional moment for me to spot my lightwall standing next to one for Bryce Courtenay as I hurtled through Melbourne Airport today. Very special, teary and stop me in my tracks moment!

Post War Britain

Recreating post war Britain felt daunting for this novel. There’s plenty about the war era, lots connected with the swinging sixties but immediately after the war is less well documented but thank you London for your marvellous ability have an exhibition on for just about everything I needed!…especiall the Festival of Britain exhibition at South Bank.

Visiting the exhibition gave me tremendous insight into the mood of the UK directly after the war and even though rationing was still underway – which I didn’t realise until I began researching – and so many families were devastated by the losses, there was a feeling of terrific anticipation.

The Festival itself was designed to bring hope to a nation that had lost so many people, so much money in its war effort and suffered such a relentless bomb blitz. It was about looking forward and making plans for a bright future.

The Dome of Discovery in the background

Everything modern from innovative furniture to new architecture and every new technology was on display.

This red sofa was a big hit in 1951

Lights were back on, people danced in the streets without guilt and the idea was to override the sadness with laughter, celebration and making sure every town and city in the country participated.



It made a tremendous difference to me to have this resource but I also realised it would have an enormous impact on my characters if I had them attending the Festival of Britain in 1951 and it would be at this venue that the idea would be planted about taking a voyage to the other side of the world.

There’s a fantastic display at London’s Science Museum too and I felt as though I was walking back through my childhood in the 60s section – it even had the exact model of our family’s first washing machine and I felt almost teary to be dragged back to being so young by something so very ordinary.

The family washing machine

Mind you – it wasn’t ordinary then. It was such a boon for my mother! The other item that gave me equal shock was staring again at the dentist drill from the early sixties. Oh gosh, I felt instantly traumatised again and this piece of equipment is the single reason I struggle to go to the dentist now unless pain pushes me there.

Shudder!

I had to be dragged out of the sixties rooms to get to the fifties! I am very grateful to the various London museums for giving me just about everything I needed to set up properly for the chapters that take us back to southern England of 1948 through 1951. Visit if you can – they’re fun!

Logo and poster for the Festival of Britain

The September 2013 Masterclass is closed

Thank you to all the wonderful writers who have ensured this event is bulging with talent. I cannot squeeze in any more scribes so please watch this space for the next Masterclass which is now scheduled for April 2014.

Keep writing. April will roll around fast. F

Who wants to go to Provence with me?

I was told by a surprising number of people last year that if I go back to Provence, they’d like to go with me and do a Lavender Keeper tour. It’s begun happening again during this book tour, so I’m taking it seriously as I do think the locations in the two books offer up a wonderful opportunity for a romantic trip. So, I’m putting together an itinerary that is blowing off my socks and will surely blow off yours if you love travel. I’m working on July 2014 and I will escort a roughly 3-week trip that I hope will walk us in the footsteps of the characters from the story, with London, Paris and Provence the key locations including the most amazing week in Provence that will include a visit to L’Occitane and distilling our own lavender while we lunch beneath a Provencal sun. It’s going to take some weeks to pull it all together but given that we only have a limited number of places, please contact me either by private FB or via this website’s email if you think this is something that may interest you.

I will send everyone who has registered interest, details and prices as things firm. We will be using Australia’s most awarded travel agent to handle all the flights, accommodation, transfers, touring and add-on options and we’ll be looking to stay in four star accommodation, which is very limited at this peak time of the year that only offers a three week window in which to see the French Lavender in full blue roar.

Exciting!