Guest Post: On the Making of Jam

All y’all know I like to make jams and things and although I can’t find a post talking about it, I did an experiment with my last batch of peach jam where I used about 30% less sugar because the stuff I’d made was So Sweet and So Stiff and because it had been years and years since I’d made jam and I’d *thought* that looked like an *awful* lot of sugar and the reduced sugar version turned out beautifully and not too sweet although I thought I could cut…

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the making of fudge

So as most people probably know, I like to bake and make candy. I’m also (no false modesty here) very good at it. At the holidays I usually make goodies to send to Ted’s work, and to hand out in tins to people, but I’m almost never there to see people enjoy it. I know they do, because Ted pretty regularly comes home to deliver marriage proposals after I’ve sent fudge or brownies to his work. This weekend, though, I got to field my own marriage proposals. :) I was…

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various & sundry

My sister is having a 1920s themed party and I am almost certain to get outbid on this fabulous dress. :) (Not that I can figure out how we can go anyway, when everyone we know is attending and it’s after Young Indiana’s bedtime, but let’s not think about that just now. :)) Last week was the 2nd Laydeez Do Comics meet-up in Dublin. It was better-attended than the first and equally interesting. I brought cookies (triple chocolate, or Chocolate Migraine) and wore my red bowler hat, the former of…

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busy busy

First, I had better say go vote for The Last Days of Ancient Sunlight before Swan River Press totally kicks my ass. :) Second, I, who can go years without a business call, had TWO today. One was with my editor for revisions on SHAMAN RISES (which she really likes except the one part that totally doesn’t work, and which I cannot give to my brainstorming filter because I’m not bloody spoiling the last book after this long! We think we have it sorted now, but we’ll see.) and the…

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ice cream, charming child & guinness

So far I have made one amazingly successful batch of vanilla ice cream, a frozen chocolate mousse, and a crystalized lump of strawberry blah. This is *not* my usual kind of treat-making record, and I’m perturbed by it. OTOH, I made these chocolate chip meringue cookies with leftover egg whites, and *they* turned out amazingly. Meringue is supposed to be hard to make, but historically I have very little trouble with things that are hard to make (we shall not speak of the first angel food cake, particularly since I…

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