Don't miss the Christmas Book Advent Calendar!

 

Image by Pixaline for Pixabay

Beginning on December 1st, I will be posting about one Christmas book a day, with info on giveaways and their sponsors as well. You won't want to miss the event!

For my story in this collection, I borrowed from a little family tradition--Bubble Loaf for Christmas breakfast. My family had our big dinner on Christmas eve, then ate a huge breakfast on Christmas morning to fortify us. And then we ate leftovers the rest of the day so my mother didn't have to cook. (There were always plenty of leftovers. My mother came from the Southern tradition of cooks who would put enough food on the table to feed an army and then make a last-minute batch of biscuits just in case someone didn't get enough to eat.)

When I moved out of the house, I took a lot of my mother's Christmas treat recipes with me, in that little blue and yellow tin recipe box that all mothers of her genertion seemed to have. 

There was cranberry orange bread and chocolate chip banana bread and an insanely good pumpkin bread with golden raisins and walnuts. But I didn't learn about Bubble Loaf until both my parents were dead and I was on  my own to create my own traditions.

This recipe came from my sister's girlfriend and I've made it every Christmas for at least twenty years. The girlfriend moved on and my sister did too but Orange Bubble Loaf remained.

Orange Bubble Loaf

2 loaves frozen bread dough, thawed

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

1 cup granulated sugar

1 jar of dried orange peel, around 1.5 ounces

2 round 9-inch cake pans

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine the sugar and dried orange peel in a shallow bowl.

Cut the thawed bread dough into pieces about an inch square and then roll each square into a little ball.

Dip the dough balls into the melted butter, then roll in the sugar orange mixture until coated.

Place the “bubble” into the pan. 

Cover with a clean dish towel and set in a warm place until the dough has risen and doubled in volume.

Bake at 325 until golden brown. Allow to cool before serving.

If freezing, slightly under bake the bread  so that when the bubble loaf is reheated, it won’t get too toasty. 

One loaf’s worth of of dough “bubbles” will fit into one pan so you'll have one pan to keep and another to give away. 

 

 

 

We've been through the wars together...

 

My boxed set, Call of Magic, did not make the USA TODAY bestseller list. This was really disappointing, as we'd worked a year toward the goal. But if it was easy...everyone would be doing it.

Still it was a great experience to work with these writers.

#callofmagic #friendsforver

Counting down the days until Call of Magic publishes

 

An all-genre book giveaway for fans of Dream Lovers.

 I am fascinated by dreams/comas/unconscious, subconscious states. If you are too, you might be interested in this curated giveaway of "Dream Lover" books. It has my novella Darkling in it, but a bunch of other really interesting-sounding books. You can find all the books here.

Fake It Till You Make It is Live!!

 It's a really busy month for my pen name Katherine Moore. My story "Fake Out" is in the new Fake It Till You Make It anthology, which went live yesterday. You can get your copy here. It's a whole collection of "fake romance" stories and mine is set in my mythical town of Silver Birch, Washington. I had a lot of fun writing it and intend to return to the characters--a mismatched group of housemates--before too long. 

While my story is sweet--some are spicy. Here's a taste.

Fairy tales as you've never seen them before!

 I love fairy tales and have rewritten a number of them: East of the Sun, West of the Moon (The Road Past Winter), Beauty and the Beast (the Summer Garden), Cinderella (Fashionista, Bride of the Midnight King), Sleeping Beauty (Spite, A Dream of Sun and Roses) and on and on. I've joined this collection of slightly twisted tales to revisit "Bluebeard" and give it  a vampire gloss. I think it's going to work.

In the meantime, here's a link where you can preorder the set for only 99 cents.