Take a Bite!

There's no food in this blog I'm afraid, but I will post a recipe this weekend if you all go out and vote for me! Heh.

So my story, First Time Fang Bang made the last 32 of the All Romance Ebooks Just One Bite contest. If you'd like to read it and maybe give me a vote I'd be really grateful, thank you.

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/contest.html



There's 32 paranormal erotic stories there in total and you can read them all free of charge. You do have to sign up to All Romance Ebooks, but it's a simple little form and you can opt out of any email and I imagine many of you will have accounts there already anyway. It's very little trouble for access to all those hot little stories and to help out one of your favourite authors! *grins*


First Time Fang Bang is in Pair 12 and you can vote for one author in each pair. My story is set at The Point, the Vampire bar that is the centre of all my Point Vamp books and in it Carrie decides to give the bar a visit. She's heard stories about The Point and wants to see what happens there for herself. She gets more than she bargains for when she gains the attention of Jean and Sebastian, two very tall, dark and handsome vampires.

I hope you enjoy reading it and I appreciate each and every vote, thank you!

Sweet Sunday -C is for...

My daughter is going through a phase of sending me cute images and I have to send her ones she'll like back. In the process of finding me a cute Elmo (I'm a sucker for Elmo) she found this photo:





And decided we needed to make cookie monster cakes. So being the lovely mum I am i got the ingredients together to give it a go. I made my muffins, but you could easily buy them and I bought my cookies but I could easily make my own in future and probably would if I had more time.

Now the major difference between the above cookie monster and my cookie monster is the fur. My husband is allergic to coconut so when I found this recipe video for cookie monster I was dismayed to find him covered in coconut, not for me and the Boo, we love coconut but for poor old Daddy. So we decided to do ours purely with blue icing.

So here's what you'll need.

6 muffins
6 cookies (or more incase of breakages)
12 white malteasers
black writing icing
blue butter icing (recipe following)
An icing bag.


Okay, so first you need to bake your muffins, here's the recipe:

• 2 cups plain flour, sifted
  
• ½ cup caster sugar
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 large egg (or 2 medium)
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine or a combo of both.
  

Preheat your oven to gas 6.

firstly, melt your butter/marg in a macrowave or in a pan. You need to do this first so it can cool down whilst you prepare the other ingredients.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl, set aside.

In another bowl whisk egg 'til combined and then add the sugar, milk and vanilla. Once this is done, start to add the butter a little at a time, stirring after every addition until it's all mixed in. Make sure your butter is cooled before doing this or you'll end up with scrambled egg!

Now add the liquid mix to the dry ingredients and mix until *JUST* combined. This is very improtant. You want lumps, you might even see a bit if un mixed flour in there, it doesn't matter. If you over work your mufffin mix your muffins will be hard and not muffinly good.

Now put your miffin mix into a muffin tray, either grease it well or use liners. I got 6 muffins plus one extra cake. You want to fill the muffin cases quite generously as you want them to rise up quite high over the edge of your liner.

get your muffins in the oven and bake for around 15-20 mins. check with a skewer to see if cooked through, the skewer will come out clean if the cake is cooked. leave muffins to cool (on a wire rack if possible)

Of course, this muffin is adaptable and you could add flavourings, chocolate chips, blueberries or whatever you liked if you wanted too.

Now we need to prepare our butter cream .

Ingredients:

1/4 cup softened butter
1-2 tsp milk
1tsp vanilla extract
Approximately 1 -11/2 cups icing sugar sieved.


You need softened butter for this, the softer the better. Place it in a big bowl and stir it around a bit until it's really soft and malleable. Add in the vanilla, the milk and about 1/2 cup of icing sugar to start. make sure you sieve it in so you don't get lumps. Keep adding icing sugar until you get to a stage where your buttercream is making soft peaks (so when you pull your spoon up it stands in a peak but flops a bit) and make sure to taste it to check it is sweet enough. If you need to add more sugar to sweeten and it goes too thick simply add a drop more milk.

Now you can add your blue colour. I went a *leeetle* OTT with mine. I say start witn 4-5 drops, stir then add more until you get a colour you are happy with. Depending on your blue colouring this could take quite alot to achieve perfect cookie monster colouring.

Okay, now get your icing bag and pour your buttercream into it. I used a fluted nozzle on mine but you could use a rolled up piece of greaseproof paper with the corner snipped off, that'd work too I am sure or simply slather the icing on and use a fork to fluff him up!

So I dotted the icing all over my muffin, just leaving little splodges all over until he looked nice and shaggy. Then I let my daughter do the rest so....well, they're a little more flowing and organic shall we say. They still look good though, so it just proves there are lots of approaches to making a shaggy cookie monster.

Right, now get your cookies and cut about a third of it off so the cookie will fit in the monsters mouth. When this is done cut into the side of the muffin just above the liner line and take it about half way through the muffin. Now insert your cookie into the slit.

T o finish put two white malteasers (or white chocolate buttons on top of his head and use some black writing icing to draw on his little pupils. And you will then have something that looks vaguely like this:



He's kinda cute isn't he? Here's the photo of a whole herd of monsters. Yes, I made 6, but one poor moster met with a messy end, so the photo only shows 5!

Vampire Themed Drinks for The Point release Day.

Well, today I’m going to break in this brand new blog with not one but two recipes for lovely, refreshing drinks. One is alcoholic and the other is not and they both have a vampire theme as today my ebook The Point is released from Total-E-Bound So before the recipe, here’s my book cover and blurb.




Book one in the Point Vamp Series.

Love conquers all, that is the point but can it bridge the differences between a vampire and a woman?

Hugh is twenty eight. He has been twenty eight for nearly one hundred years. Hugh is a vampire. He owns a club called The Point and he pays girls to have sex with him. He then counts to ten as he sucks their blood to semi-satisfy his lust.

Elizabeth is a doctor, she loves her job but likes to escape into the countryside now and then. When she twists her ankle Hugh comes to her aid. He carries her curvy form all the way back to his home. He takes care of her ankle and the rest of her body too but he goes too far and sucks her perfectly intoxicating blood.

How can these two lovers have any kind of relationship? They don’t know, only time will reveal the answers.

And now, onto the drinks and later a competiton. First, I’m going to give you the recipe for The Point Smoothie. This is a fresh, fruit and yoghurt smoothie that is suitable for adults and kids alike. The end colour is deep, dark, pink if you wanted to make it even more blood like you could add a little red food colouring, I didn’t because I like to keep things natural, especially as I was letting my daughter have some of my smoothie! I found this on smoothie web and adapted it into more of a raspberry smoothie as I love raspberries. This recipe makes enough for two big glasses full or four smaller, kid friendly glasses full.




The Point Smoothie.


1 ½ cups raspberries (or approximately 1 punnet of raspeberries)
2/3 cup cranberry—raspberry Juice
6oz raspberry yoghurt (1 ½ standard pots approximately)
1 ½ cups ice.
Note: for Brit readers who don’t have American cup measures a small tea cup is the size you want, not a mug! Instructions:

Bung it all in a blender and blend. Or if you have one of those stick blenders bung all ingredients in a jug and blend with your stick blender.It is as simple as that. You can then add more yoghurt or more cranberry—raspberry juice to make a thicker or thinner smoothie.It is a very refreshing drink which is thick and a little milky from the yoghurt but mostly it is rich and fruity with the taste of tangy raspberries.






And now onto the alcoholic drink, this one folks is for us adults. I was looking for inspiration and found a page of Vampire Cocktails on Squidoo by Lou16 and the Vampire’s delight I saw there inspired the following drink:




This recipe makes enough to fill two wine glasses.

The Point Cocktail.

1 floz Dark Rum.
1 ripe banana
3 scoops vanilla ice cream
A Squeeze (about 1tsp)lemon or lime juice
Grenadine (to coat glasses)

Combine the rum, vanilla and ice cream in a blender. (This will take a minute, you might want to add a little water if your mix seems very thick). Now have a little taste and squeeze in lemon or lime juice (I had lemon in but I think lime would be better) and blend again. Repeat until the desired flavour is achieved. You could add more rum too, if you desire but I’m a bit of an alcohol wimp myself though Rum is my favourite tipple. You don't much taste the banana either, it's the rum you taste mostly with the creamy ice-cream.

Now take one of your two wine glasses and the bottle of grenadine and pour just a little onto the sides of the glass and swirl it around so it coats the sides. Or, like me, if your grenadine has been in the fridge (and is at least 8 years old *L*) use a straw to pull out some of the set grenadine and smear it all around the inside of the glass, it leaves an interesting smeared appearance that way. Repeat in the other wine glass then pour in the blended ice cream and rum mix. Drink and enjoy.




This is somewhat like rum and raisin ice cream without the raisins but the citrus tones down the sweetness quite a bit. It is very unctuous and feels very decadent flowing down your throat, but don’t trust me, make one yourself.

Now, on to the competition. I am sure, like me, you were disappointed with the cocktail’s name. I’ve not been able to think of something suitably vampiric, so folks, it is over to you! I want you to name my cocktail and in return I will give you an awesome prize.

Firstly, your cocktail name will feature in a future Point Vamp book and secondly you will receive an assortment of The Point goodies including a t—shirt, signed bookmarks, magnets and some special, secret vampiric treats and a $15 gift voucher to spend on ebooks. Simply email your Cocktail name to me at victoria @ victoriablisse .co .uk (no spaces) and title your mail “Point Vamp Cocktail Competition” by the 1st of May to be in with a chance to win this unique prize or comment on my posts about this competition on facebook, those suggestions will go into the hat as well!

But because I’m so generous I’m giving away TWO other Blisseful Vamp prizes. These prizes will include The Point Magnets and Bookmarks as well as other Blisse goodies (some signed) and some special, secret Vampiric treats and a $10 gift certificate to spend on ebooks of your choice. To win one of these prizes all you have to do is:

Tweet about my competition at twitter.com(make sure you mention @victoriablisse so I know you’ve done it!) if you follow me http://www.twitter.com/victoriablisse I will be tweeting about my competition regularly and so you can RT my message and that will count as an entry into this competition.

Or you can mention my competition in a facebook message ( use @Victoria Blisse so I will see it) again, if you add me as a friend http://www.facebook.com/victoriablisse you’ll be able to ‘share’ my status updates with your friends and that will count as an entry.

And one last chance to win. Take a photo of yourself drinking your ‘The Point’ Vamp Cocktail and either email it to me victoria @ victoriablisse.co. uk (No spaces) or upload them to the photo album on the Victoria Blisse fan page on facebook . If you are tee-total or don't like/have rum you may upload a photo of yourself drinking a 'The Point' smoothie instead in the same photo album or email it to the address mentioned above.

Then you will get a chance to win a Blisseful vamp prize pack too!

I’m terribly good to you all aren’t I? Oh, yes I am. The deadline for entries to all 3 of these competitions is the 1st May. All 3 will be kept seperate and drawn seperately. All names will be placed into a hat and drawn by my handsome assistant (my husband) and then I shall email all the winners (or notify you on twitter or facebook if applicable) to ask for your snail mail address.

So you have a couple of weeks to get your entries in.So engage your brain (make up a cocktail name)exercise your fingers (spread the news on facebook and twitter) and then get yourself a little tipsy (photo yourself drinkingThe Point cocktail) and then hopefully you’ll win an awesome prize!