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Baked apples & Custard
by
Jude Knight
Baked apples and custard Regency canal boat style
Put two pots on the brazier. One needs to be large enough for the four apples. One needs to hold the dish of custard, and allow room for your hands to get it in and out. (Or, in 2017, set the oven to 350 degrees Celsius.) Add a cup of red wine to the apple pot and two cups of water to the custard pot.[image error]
Take the apples and remove their cores. Pierce their skin in several places. Place in the pot and sprinkle a teaspoon of raisins and a teaspoon of coarse sugar (brown sugar is fine) in each hole. Scatter some cloves in the dish, being careful not to get any in the apple. Put the lid back on and leave on the heat for 50 minutes to an hour. The apples are ready to eat when they’re soft right through. They won’t look beautiful, but they’ll be delicious.[image error]
Once the apples are baking, beat together four eggs, one tablespoon of sugar, and one cup of single cream. Pour into a dish large enough to hold the mixture and small enough to fit in the pot. You can use individual custard cups, but you’ll need to reduce the cooking time. Sprinkle with nutmeg. Put in the pot of hot water. The custard should be cooked around the same time as the apples. When the point of a thin knife comes out clean, remove the dish from the pot.[image error]
Their marriage is a fiction.
Their enemies are all too real.
Ella survived an abusive and philandering husband, in-laws who hate her, and public scorn. But she’s not sure she will survive love. It is too late to guard her heart from the man forced to pretend he has married such a disreputable widow, but at least she will not burden him with feelings he can never return.
Alex understands his supposed wife never wishes to remarry. And if she had chosen to wed, it would not have been to him. He should have wooed her when he was whole, when he could have had her love, not her pity. But it is too late now. She looks at him and sees a broken man. Perhaps she will learn to bear him.
In their masquerade of a marriage, Ella and Alex soon discover they are more well-matched than they expected. But then the couple’s blossoming trust is ripped apart by a malicious enemy. Two lost souls must together face the demons of their past to save their lives and give their love a future.[image error]
Genre: Regency romance, historical romance, historical suspense, Regency noir, gothic
Heat rating: PG-13 ISBN: 9780473393670
Page count: 382 pages on Kindle Publication date: 9 May 2017
A Raging Madness
In the following scene, Ella and Alex have been discussing what to do with Ella’s only possession, the colt Falcon’s Storm.
“I expect Rede would find him a place if I asked. He keeps a stud in Essex at his wife’s estate there. You remember? I told you how I had to reorganize the stables when I reviewed the place for them. That could be a good place for Falcon’s Storm. Rede and Anne should rebuild them, actually. If they are serious about breeding…”
Alex began to explain the changes he proposed, using several sheets from his sketch pad to illustrate the best layout for stalls and how he would connect the stables, fields, and training grounds to greatest advantage.
She had a few ideas of her own, and more of the sketch pad was sacrificed to creating the ideal stud and training farm, a project that ate the entire afternoon and so absorbed them, they did not notice how the day had passed until Alex said, “We had better light a candle, Ella. It is getting dark.”
Gracious. He was right. The sun had gone down, and any minute now, the three workers would dock the boat and arrive expecting their dinner. Sure enough, even as she had the thought, the boat swung into the canal side where cottages and an inn hinted at a substantial village. Moments later, Big Dan poked his head in the doors.
“We’ll just be dealing with Bess, Ma’am. That stew smells proper decent, and so it does!”
Ella hurried about, checking the stew she had set on the brazier earlier in the day, hunting out the bread they’d bought fresh in a village that morning (no time for potatoes and turnips and carrots), setting four fresh apples in a covered pot to cook while they ate their meal. She could make a custard, too. They had milk and eggs, and it would be a silent apology for forgetting her self-imposed duties.
“They will be happy with whatever you give them, Ella,” Alex reassured her. “If I bought pies from the local tavern, they would be happy with that. They do not expect you to cook for them and nor should they.”
“I expect it, Alex. I do not like being idle any more than you do, and if I say I will do something, I expect to do what I say.”
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