• About Catherine Castle
  • Blog
  • Book Shelf
  • Contact Catherine
  • Copyright Permissions
  • Gardens
  • Guest Blog Information-A Writer’s Garden
  • Guest Blog Information-Musings from a Writer’s Brain
  • Guest Blog Information-Tasty Tuesdays
  • Guest Blog Information-Wednesday Writers
  • WIP

Catherine Castle

~ Romance for the Ages

Catherine Castle

Tag Archives: strreusel coffeecake recipe

Coffeecake Chaos and Ryan Jo Summers on Wednesday Writers

22 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by Catherine Castle in books, Recipes, Wednesday Writers

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Catherine Castle's Wednesday Writers blog series, Coffecake Chaos, coffeecake recipe, Food and Romance Go Together Anthology Vol. 1, Ryan Jo Summers, strreusel coffeecake recipe, Sweet romance

Today Ryan Jo Summers is back on Wednesday Writers. Today she’s giving us the background behind her latest novella Coffeecake Chaos. The novella is part of the Food and Romance Go Together Anthology Vol 1, which comes out mid to late May, 2017 from Melange Books. Ryan’s story is sweet romance, but she doesn’t know the heat level of the other stories in the anthology. In addition to today’s Story Behind the Story post, Ryan Jo is sharing a yummy recipe that goes along with her book title—Coffeecake Chaos.  I can’t wait to make this delicious treat! Welcome, Ryan Jo.

 

Coffeecake Chaos

By Ryan Jo Summers

(Food and Romance Go Together Anthology Vol. 1)

 

Avianna Goodman and Sawyer Steele had been young lovers. Now she is a caterer, building her own business. Right now she needs cash to help her family. He’s being ordered to stop his wild ways and settle down to take over the family empire. His controlling mother has picked out the perfect heiress for him. Now they need the right caterer to launch the perfect engagement celebration.

 

 

Coffeecake Chaos – the story behind the story

 

A publishing house had two calls for submissions going at the same time. They wanted short stories for anthologies. The first one was To Love a Scotsman and the other was simply food related somehow. I was more interested in the love a Scotsman idea, but dually noted the information for both calls.

Then I left them to simmer, like a pot on the stove, to see which one would eventually surface as a good storyline.

Unfortunately, I really could not come up with anything solid for the Scotsman story, hard as I tried. I had a hero’s name and that was about it. Eventually, I had to admit I just didn’t have a story there. Bummer.

However, I was building my pet sitting business, and one of my new clients was a team of caterers. There was a clear food connection! I started thinking that would be a fun career—at least in a literary world. I started paying close attention to little things they said, just bits of conversation. And the wheels started turning.

Going back further, years ago (90’s), when I was newly married, I would make a streusel coffeecake while cooking breakfast—it was that crazy easy to whip up—and give it to hubby to share at his work. It earned me brownie points with his co-workers and made him seem like “the man”.

Over a period of a few weeks, the plot grew, centered on a caterer and her coffeecake. The characters fleshed out like plump browned fowl, the plot thickened like gravy, and a story was created like a menu paired with good wine.

I submitted “Coffeecake Chaos” and soon the good news came that it had been accepted.

 

Streusel Coffeecake

Ingredients:

Filling: Mix below items together with fork in small bowl before mixing cake batter: ½ C brown sugar, 2 Tbls. flour, 2 tsp. cinnamon, 2 Tbls. melted butter  and ½ C nuts (optional) Batter:  1 ½ C sifted flour, 1 ½ tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt and ¾ C sugar. ¼ C shortening,   ½ C milk and one egg (Well beaten)

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Sift dry ingredients. Cut in shortening with pastry knife or fork. Blend in egg and milk.
  3. Spread half of batter in greased, flat 8 X 8 or 6 X 10 inch pan. Sprinkle with half of filling. Add rest of batter and sprinkle remaining filling on top.
  4. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.  Good served warm or room temp.

Optional topping: warm maple syrup and mix with brown sugar and drizzle over top. Or blend a few teaspoons milk with powdered sugar until runny and drizzle over top. Crumbled, cooked bacon or chopped nuts are good sprinkled over this too.

** I really don’t recall where this recipe originated from to give proper credit to. I inherited it from my mother and tweaked it some over the years.

Coffecake Chaos is available for presale May 4 for $2.99 special presale price until May 16 when it goes to $4.99. To get your copy of the anthology with Ryan Jo’s story check out Amazon, Smashwords , or lulu.com for the print version.

 

About the Author:

Ryan Jo Summers is a North Carolina author who specializes in writing romances with a twist. Love stories blended with inspirational, paranormal, suspense or time travel–or several at once. She also writes non-fiction for regional periodicals. Ryan’s dad is a songwriter and his aunt wrote poetry so she claims she came by her writing skill honestly. Apparently it’s in the genes.

Her hobbies include bird-watching, houseplants (50ish and growing), poetry and yard work. She loves to gather with friends, hike in the forest with her dog, paint ceramics and canvas and work on wiggly word find puzzles. She lives in a 1920 cottage with a menagerie of pets. Living in the mountains, she dreams of the shore and frequently uses the water as scenes for her stories.

Ryan Jo Summers—Proud author with Soul Mate Publishing & Melange Books

WEBSITE: www.ryanjosummers.com

BLOG: http://www.summersrye.wordpress.com

FB:  www.facebook.com/pages/Ryan- Jo-Summers-author-page/ 312875648810797

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ RyanJoSummers

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catherine Castle Facebook

Catherine Castle Facebook

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,709 other followers

Recent Posts

  • Wednesday Writers–Shadow in the Dark by Antony Barone Kolenc January 5, 2022
  • Musings from a Writer’s Brain—Reality or Make-believe? by Amy R Anguish December 27, 2021
  • Wednesday Writers—When Love Trusts by Judythe Morgan December 22, 2021
  • Wednesday Writers–Defending David by Barbara M. Britton December 15, 2021
  • Wednesday Writers–An interview with Lady Fallon from Susan Hanniford Crowley’s YA Fantasy Lady Fallon’s Dragons December 1, 2021

Archives

Categories

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Writer's organizations

  • ACFW Ohio Chapter
  • American Christian Fiction Writers

Blog Stats

  • 60,677 hits
  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Catherine Castle
    • Join 1,709 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Catherine Castle
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...