Summer reading, summer lips, summer cake
Happy Friday, friends! Before I get to my raves of the week, I have a few fun articles to share with you. The New York Times did a great article about diversity in romance, focusing on Helen Hoang and her fantastic book, The Kiss Quotient, and they called The Wedding Date a "surprise hit," whee! Also, Bookpage says The Wedding Date was one of the best romances of the year so far! And finally, I got interviewed for this fun article at the Wall Street Journal about online book clubs; I'm thrilled at all of the on and offline book clubs that have chosen to read The Wedding Date!
Oh, and before I forget: Penguin Random House is doing a super fun giveaway of four upcoming books, including both The Proposal and Intercepted, so you should all go enter!
Now to products: it's summer, and we're all outside in the sun, or inside in air conditioning, or both, and all of those things make my lips super dry and chapped, the time when you most need a great lip balm. As you've all probably realized by now, I'm both obsessed with and picky about lip products: I always have multiple lipsticks and at least one lip balm in every bag, but I care a lot about how any lip product feels when it's on, and this matters the most to me for lip balms. I don't like anything that feels tingly, or chalky, or waxy, or with too much of a fragrance. All that said, my new favorite lip balm is the Laneige lip sleeping mask. It does have a fragrance, but it goes away after a minute or so, and it feels sooooo luxurious on. It's amazing for flights, or after lots of outdoor time, or just any time when your lips are on the dry side. I love it so much I want to get a second tub for my purse, so I never have to move the one that's at my bedside. But if you have a different favorite lip balm that fits my above qualifications, please let me know!
I have another fantastic upcoming book for you, and it comes out in just a few weeks! The Shortest Way Home comes out on July 31st, and you should all preorder it immediately! It's about a woman who decides impulsively to ditch her fancy Goldman Sachs job, not move to New York with her fancy rich boyfriend, and instead go work for a winery in Sonoma. It's about goals and dreams, and what happens when you turn out to not want those things you thought you wanted, friends and family, and figuring yourself out, and it's a really fun and thought provoking read. You should all preorder it now and then come back and tell me how much you loved it early August!
I have another cake recipe for you this week! I know, I know, I'm telling you to turn on your oven for an hour in the middle of summer, but I promise this cake is so great and super easy. But don't just trust me: the Marian Burros plum torte recipe is so famous that when you google Marian Burros, plum torte autofills. And it's famous for a reason: it's easy, it's delicious, and it works with all sorts of summer (and probably other) fruit. When I posted about it on Instagram last week, I told a friend it took only a few minutes to throw together, so when I made it again this week, I timed myself, and it took 9 minutes (well, technically 12, but two of those minutes were me searching my kitchen for the lemons that I knew were there, and one was me searching for the pan). I made it the first time with plums, and the second time with blueberries, and both cakes were highly successful (although I think I put too many blueberries in, I'm putting a note below about what the right amount of fruit is). I can't wait to try it with nectarines and lots of other berries. Also I discovered after raving about this recipe that Marian Burros is a Wellesley alum!
Marian Burros Plum Torte
(originally from The New York Times in 1983)
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup granulated sugar, plus an additional 1 to 2 tablespoons sugar for sprinkling on top
1/2 cup or 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
12 small Italian purple plums, halved and pitted*
1 teaspoon vanilla (optional, my addition, add it or don't depending on your taste and the fruit you're using)
lemon juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional, in the original recipe, but I think depends on the fruit you use and how much you like cinnamon)
Preheat the oven to 350. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. In either a larger bowl with a hand mixer, the bowl of a stand mixer, or the bowl of a food processor, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy and light. Add the eggs one at a time, the vanilla, if using it, and then the dry ingredients.
Spoon batter into an ungreased 9 inch springform pan (I KNOW, I was worried about the ungreased part too, but it was fine both times!), and spread until even. Arrange the plums, skin side up, all over the batter, then squeeze lemon juice over the top and sprinkle with the sugar and and cinnamon, if using.
Bake for 45-50 minutes, until the cake is golden, and cool on a rack. This cake keeps really well, so if you're keeping it for the next day, just let it cool all the way and cover it very well with plastic wrap.
*The plums she calls for are the tiny golf ball sized plums you can get at farmers markets and some good produce markets this time of year, but if you have the larger plums, I'd use more like 6-8 of them, and cut them in quarters instead of halves. When I did this with blueberries, I used a pint, which was a little too much, next time I'd use about 3/4 of a pint. In general, I'd use enough fruit so that the fruit covers the top of the batter well, and the pieces fit snugly next to each other, but they aren't overlapping or crowding one another.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Jasmine
(Also! If there's anything in this newsletter you think a friend would enjoy, please feel free to forward it to them!)
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