Comfort in the Kitchen by Kristin Wallace

This month on Romancing the Genres we’re talking “Comfort Foods”. Food is such an integral part of our life, and not just because we use it to ease our hunger or to get nutrients. Food is associated so intensely with our emotions. Baking cookies with your mother, recipes that were handwritten by your grandmother, dads on the grill, pizza parties with friends, late night junk food during finals, that first dinner date with “the one”. Every dish comes with a memory.

Birthday throwback/w the "cat" cake

For my comfort food, I chose cake…more specifically a birthday cake. Growing up my mom made a Coca Cola Cake every year, and yes Coke was an ingredient. It is delicious! Of course, it wasn’t just the flavor of the cake…it was the fact that my mom made it from scratch…with love. She’d even get fancy and make shapes. One year, she made a cat. It’s still my favorite kind of cake, and it always makes me think of growing up with a cool mom who always went beyond to make sure it was a special day.

Here’s the recipe so you can try for yourself:

Cake:

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1½ cup chopped or small marshmallows

½ cup shortening

½ cup butter

3 Tbsp. cocoa

1 cup Coke

½ cup buttermilk

1 tsp. baking soda

2 eggs beaten

Directions:

Sift together flour & sugar, then stir in marshmallows (set aside)

In a sauce pan, put shortening, butter, cocoa & Coke. Bring to a boil & heat until butter and shortening melts. Remove from heat and pour over flour mixture. Stir in buttermilk, baking soda, and eggs (beaten). Pour into greased pan and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

Icing:

Ingredients:

½ cup butter

3 Tbs. cocoa

6 Tbsp. Coke

1 box powdered sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

In a saucepan, put butter, cocoa and Coke & bring to boil. When the butter has melted, remove from heat & add powdered sugar & pecans. (It should be runny.) Pour over cake.

CHANCE TO WIN! What comfort foods bring back amazing memories for you? Leave a comment & be entered to win a FREE ebook copy of my next book, Coming Home To Paradise.

Kristin Wallace is the USA Today Best Selling Author of inspirational and contemporary romance, and women’s fiction filled with “Love, Laughter and a Leap of Faith”. Look for her latest release COMING HOME TO PARADISE on April 11!

About the book:

Thirty years ago, desperation drove Elizabeth McCarthy to do the unthinkable when she abandoned her infant daughter, Layla, to the care of her mother. Now, after years of trying to outrun the memories and the guilt, Beth has come home to Shellwater Key to make amends. She has survived deadbeat relationships, becoming a single mother, and cancer, but now faces the most difficult battle of her life…finding a way to connect with the legendary mother she was never able to please…and earning the forgiveness of the daughter who has every reason to hate her. She might even have a chance to find the missing piece of her heart when Layla’s father arrives in town looking for answers.

Coming Home To Paradise is a powerful story of a woman who never felt like she was enough, despite being physically beautiful. It’s the story of a woman who has been broken by life, and by illness, and who now only wants to make things right. A story about discovering that it’s never too late to find true love…or more accurately…find the true love that slipped away.

For more info visit Kristin's Website