Exciting news 1) Little, Brown, my publishers have asked for a follow up to Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe! Hurrah. It will be called Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe (hmm, can you guess what it’s about?) and it will be out late next year for Christmas 2012, and I absolutely cannot wait to get started on it.

Exciting news 2) is that next year’s book, Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop of Dreams is all finished and ready and the cover is gorgeous and early feedback is very flattering so that is exciting too. It’s out at the end of March. Hurrah! It’s about Rosie, a busy, harassed nurse in London who has to go to the country to take care of her elderly aunt after an operation. She thinks it is going to be the most boring thing she has ever done. It is NOT :). We’ve got some yummy sweet recipes in there too and lots of nice things.

Reading wise, my friend the brilliant Lucy Mangan recommended The Best of Everything which I utterly adored. It’s about New York girls in the 50s, a bit Mad Men, but so honest and fascinating and brilliant, it felt like it was written yesterday. Zone One, which is good, but I’m not sure we need another zombie apocalypse whilst the Walking Dead is just being so brilliant and Justin Cronin must surely be due to deliver the follow up to the Passage soon ; The Children of Men, which is COMPLETELY awesome- I loved the film, but the book is amazing in a completely different way; a very hyped new book with a beautiful cover which I found to be a fairly thin Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell rip- off (which IS brilliant); and Boomerang by Michael Lewis, who if you have the faintest interest in our current economic situation you should be reading almost constantly.

Hope you’re well! Jenxxx

Anyway, here is one you might have missed whooshing past, but I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s by Ben Hatch, and it’s called Are We Nearly There Yet? 8000 miles in a Vauxhall Astra . At first glance you might think it’s one of those Bill Bryson light comic monologues (no disrespect to Bill Bryson by the way, I think he’s a genius who has taught more people more interesting stuff in a fun way than just about anyone since Richard Attenborough), but it’s not like that at all. It’s about a family who take off to write a guidebook for Fromer’s with their two toddlers. Whilst they do, Ben’s father gets ill (it’s non-fiction), and, due to eight hours in a car together every day for months on end, the whole family learn a lot about each other.

I think why I liked it so very much is that so many books look at bad marriages or relationships; or they focus on finding a person, then ignoring after the happy ever after, whereas this is about a living, loving, occasionally quarrelsome but clearly very happy marriage and it felt curiously life-affirming to read about it. It’s very warts and all, extremely funny, very human and very sad. If you liked One Day (ha, I have yet to meet anyone who did NOT like One Day, or who was just saying they didn’t to show off and be different), or just like good books in general, don’t let this one pass you by. OOH and for disclosure, yes, he is a friend of mine, but he has written loads of books and I have never felt moved to blog about them before :)

Other things on my pile:

A Storm of Swords (Still, Jen? Jings, yes, and I have about three more to go as well. But WHAT a storyteller.)

The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England -such a cool idea.

Little House on the Prairie I was reading this on holiday- it was one of those old things people leave behind in slightly shabby holiday cottages like the one we were in- and the baby threw it in the swimming pool. As it rained every single day on holiday I rather grumpily didn’t replace it. But it is even better than I remember and I am going to get a copy and start reading it to the boys asap.

Being a contrary character, after saying I am hardly ever on facebook, I have totally started parking out on my publisher’s page on facebook, which is at www.facebook.com/jennycolganbooks BECAUSE loads of people have, to my total surprise, started baking the recipes from the book and posting them up there. It’s amazing, I feel like I am responsible for cake popping up all over the place. Anyway, if you want to get in touch, or post your recipe pics (I am trying to figure out a way to turn it into a competition without being able to taste any of them, it’s really tricky), feel free to pop over there and say hi.

As for reading, like half the rest of the country I have been sucked- PLOUF- headlong into A Game of Thrones of which there are at least another billion and a half pages to read. It’s entirely possible I’ll never read anything ever again, although I am anxious awaiting the new Jon Ronson. Jon is one of those writers whom I will read on literally anything, I seriously think he’s a genius. I would never tell him this though, it makes him anxious that kind of thing. OOH and I am reading the six year old this. It is making us both very happy, possibly me the most. It took us a couple of goes to get into it as he was very scared of the white witch at first, but now we’re hooked. I envy him, hearing it for the very first time. “What’s Aslan?” he keeps asking, as C.S. Lewis foreshadows him brilliantly.

Hope you’re enjoying some sunshine wherever you are! Spring is here in the South of France, which means the children are constantly covered in mud and bounce about a lot I approve of both of those things.

The Book Show

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.

Line a 12-cupcake pan with cupcake papers.

Crack the eggs into a cup and beat lightly with a fork.

Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer for two minutes, until light and creamy. Divide the mixture evenly between the cake cases.

Bake for 18–20 minutes until risen and firm to the touch. Allow to cool for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

Um, decorate.

900g plain flour plus additional for dusting
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
11/2 tsp salt
11/2 tsp grated ginger
400g sugar
2 oz crystallized ginger, coarsely chopped
500g well-shaken buttermilk
60g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 large eggs
1 tbsp vegetable oil
45cl lime curd

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 3/4 teaspoon grated ginger in a large bowl.

Whisk together 300g sugar and remaining 3/4 teaspoon grated ginger in a shallow bowl.

Pulse remaining 100g sugar with crystallized ginger in a food processor until ginger is finely chopped.

Transfer this to a bowl and whisk in buttermilk, butter and eggs until smooth. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and stir until a dough forms (dough will be sticky).

Turn out dough on to a well-floured surface and knead gently just until it comes together, 10 to 12 times, then form into a ball.

Lightly dust work surface and dough with flour, then roll out dough into a 13-inch round (about 1/3 inch thick) with a floured rolling pin.

Cut out rounds with a floured cutter and transfer to a lighly floured baking sheet. Gather scraps and reroll, then cut out additional rounds. (Reroll only once.)

Heat oil in a wide heavy pot until a splash would result in third-degree burns.

Working in batches of seven or eight, carefully add rounds, one at a time, to oil and fry, turning over once, until golden brown, one and a half to two minutes in total per batch. Transfer to paper towels to drain.

Cool slightly, then dredge in ginger sugar.

Gently slice doughnuts in half and spoon lime curd on the bottom half; top with the second half of the doughnut.

Serve three or so to a plate, garnished with slices of crystallized ginger.

Icing
4 oz Breton soft butter, first churn
16 oz icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 oz milk
2 tsp essence of roses

Grease three small cake pans. Cream the butter until as smooth as a child’s cheek.

Add sugar very gradually. No dumping like you normally do, Isabel. This has to be fluffy; properly fluffy. Add a grain at a time through the whisk.

Add the eggs slowly. Beat well at all times.

Mix the sifted flours and add a little milk and vanilla; then some flour, then some milk and vanilla and so on. Do not rush. This is your birthday cake for you, and you are very special. You deserve a little time.

Bake for 20 minutes at 350°F/gas mark 4.

For the icing, add half the icing sugar to the butter. Add milk, vanilla and essence of roses. Beat thoroughly, adding sugar till the icing reaches the desired consistency.

Ice layers and top of cake. Add candles. Not too many.

Add friends. As many as you can.

Blow candles out while making a happy wish. Do not tell anyone a) your wish, b) your recipe. Some things, like you, are special, my darling.

Love, Gramps

Grease the small square tin and line the base and sides with baking paper. Allow the baking paper to extend over the top by about an inch if using the shorter tin.

Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one by one, until well combined. Beat in the sweetened condensed milk until well mixed. Stir in Horlicks. Fold in flour. Finally stir in vanilla and cognac.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin (the batter will fill the tin to almost 90 per cent, but the cake will not rise up too much, so don’t worry, darling). Cover the top loosely with a piece of aluminium foil.

Steam over high heat for 30 minutes. Fill up with more hot water if the steamer is low on water after 30 minutes.

Turn heat down to medium and steam for another 60 minutes, or until cooked (may steam for up to 4 hours in total if desired – this, according to wisdom, allows the cake to be kept for up to a month). Remember to replenish steamer with hot water whenever it is drying up.

For 24 cupcakes
250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
250g caster sugar
4 eggs
250g self-raising flour
4 tbsp milk (whole or semi-skimmed, not skimmed)
6–8 tsp strawberry jam

For the Swiss meringue buttercream
8 egg whites
500g caster sugar
500g unsalted butter
4 tsp vanilla extract
8 tbsp seedless strawberry jam

Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan oven 170°C/gas mark 5.

Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, flour and milk and beat until well combined and smooth. Spoon the mixture evenly into the 24 paper cases.

Spoon a little jam on to each cake and, using a cocktail stick, swirl the jam into the batter.

Bake for 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

To make Swiss meringue buttercream

Place the egg whites and sugar in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir pretty much constantly to prevent the egg from cooking. After five–ten minutes, when the sugar has dissolved, remove the bowl from the pan of simmering water and whisk until the meringue has puffed up and the mix is cool.

Add the butter and vanilla to the meringue and whisk until the butter has been completely incorporated into it. At first it will look a disaster – it will collapse and look curdled but don’t worry! Stop when the mixture is smooth, light and fluffy.

Beat the jam into the buttercream. If you want it pinker, add a little food colouring. Spoon the buttercream into a piping bag and swirl on to each cupcake. Finish off with some sugar sprinkles or decorations.

Quarter the cakes and put the pieces into tiny cases with cocktail sticks poking out. Attempt to get passers-by to try them and be knocked out by your genius so they then come and spend lots of money at your shop and save you from bankruptcy.

OOh, what’s been good? The great thing about kindle is that you can always see what you’ve been reading. My editor told me to read The Good Soldier which was really puzzling and upsetting and incredibly powerful. I never read introductions first, I hate spoilers, so it wasn’t till I got till the end and read the introduction that I realised it was actually meant to be puzzling and upsetting. Phew. I thought I just hadn’t got it. This is why I wasn’t a very good English Lit student.

Millions of people have also been telling me to read The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs and I was going to wait till I got back to London and nick my friend’s copy, but I cracked in the end and downloaded it for a trip to Barcelona, and yes, it really is that good. Hilariously funny, a very touching love story and very very very sharp on the vagaries of modern middle-class living. I couldn’t put it down and kept putting my head on my husband’s shouder and giving deep sighs of relief until he told me I wasn’t allowed to do that anymore whilst he was driving the car in case we had an accident.