Happy Valentine’s Day 2020!

I personally like spending Valentine’s Day reading or watching a good romcom. Although if some attractive guy wants to make me breakfast in bed, I’m all for that too!

Until I met my husband, I don’t think I ever had a date for Valentine’s Day. It was Galentine’s Day for me. When my daughter was due in February, I was really worried that she’d was going to be born on Valentine’s Day. A friend asked, “Why?” And I said, “I gather you’ve always had a date for Valentine’s Day!” (Thankfully, my daughter was not born on Valentine’s Day.)

Fallen Chocolate Cake Recipe for a Happy Valentine’s Day

Here’s my go-to recipe for Valentine’s Day: the fallen chocolate cake from Cooks Illustrated. In Partner Pursuit, my protagonist Audrey makes this for Jake when she wants to impress him with her cooking. He is duly impressed. 🙂

Ingredients

8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), plus extra for ramekins

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate coarsely chopped;

4 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon table salt

½ cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour plus extra for ramekins

Butter and flour (or use cocoa powder) eight 6-ounce ramekins.

Instructions:

Melt 8 tablespoons butter and chocolate in medium heatproof bowl set over a pan of almost simmering water, stirring until smooth; remove from heat.

Beat the eggs, yolk, vanilla, salt, and sugar until the ribbon stage – the color will be pale yellow and the volume is nearly tripled. The mixture will drop from the beaters in a heavy thick ribbon. This usually takes about 10 minutes with the hand held mixer.

Pour egg mixture over melted chocolate and butter; sprinkle flour over egg mixture. Gently fold egg and flour into chocolate until batter is completely mixed.

Pour batter into prepared ramekins. (At this stage, you can put them into the fridge for about 8 hours. They’ll need to come back to room temperature [about 30 minutes] before you bake them)

Bake in a 400 degree preheated oven for about 12 minutes or until the the cakes have risen over the rims. They’re done when they have a thin crust and the center jiggles when you tap ramekins.

Run a knife around the edges to loosen the cake (didn’t need to do that last night cuz Kellie had buttered so enthusiastically) and invert onto a plate. Let the cake cool for about a minute before removing the ramekin.

When Adam Met Evie (re-titled as Her Outback Driver)

And if you’re looking for a fun escape read, my friend Giulia Skye just published her book When Adam Met Evie. Woohoo! We met on the train to the Romantic Novelists Association conference in Leeds several years ago.

I highly recommend When Adam Met Evie. The characters are very believable and engaging, the story hooks, and the setting is the Australian outback–what more could you ask for?

Here’s the blurb:

“When former Olympic Swimmer, Michael Adams—now reluctantly Canada’s hottest reality TV star— insults his fake showbiz wife on social media, he escapes the ensuing scandal and jumps on the first flight to Australia. Desperate to experience ordinary life again—if only for a few weeks—he becomes “Adam”, just another tourist traveling through the Outback. But with a reward out for his safe return and his fame’s nasty habit of catching up with him when he least expects, he needs a disguise… and he’s just found it.

Sweet and scruffy British backpacker, Evie Blake, is taking a year out of her busy London life. Tired of lies and liars, she’s looking for adventure to heal her broken heart. So when the hot Canadian she meets at the campground offers to be her travel partner through Western Australia’s wild Kimberley region, she grabs the chance, unaware he’s got the world out looking for him. He’s just a down-on-his-luck traveler, right? ” From Goodreads.

Let’s Talk

What do you like to do on Valentine’s Day? Do you have any romcom or romance book recommendations? Any recent romcom movies you’d recommend? Happy Valentine’s Day 2020!