So how about some luscious and creamy tiramisu with an autumnal twist? It’s no bake, and so unbelievably simple, even I can make it. It’s decadently rich and sinfully sweet and will satisfy your wildest desires. Well, maybe not your wildest desires.

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Sinful Pumpkin Tiramisu
Ingredients:
· 8 oz. mascarpone cheese

· 1 cup (1/2 of an 8 oz can) pumpkin puree (make sure you get the can of 100% pumpkin puree and not the pumpkin pie filling – they often look the same)

· 1 cup heavy whipping cream

· ½ cup sugar

· 1 tbsp. vanilla extract

· 1 tsp. cinnamon

· 1/8 tsp. nutmeg

· ¾ cup espresso or coffee (you can try this with the pumpkin spice coffees out now to make everything more pumpkin spicey, but I think they are pretty dreadful and, really, you  do want more of a coffee taste. I mean, don’t you? Set it aside until it cools to room temperature.

· 2 tbsps Tia Maria or Kahlua, dark room or other coffee liqueur. (Optional. If you don’t use it, though, you might want to add a smidge more espresso or coffee.)

· 2 packages soft lady fingers (the packages are 3 or 3.5 oz. each). They will be attached to each other in rows. Separate the rows, but do not separate the top and bottom of each  lady finger.

· 2 tsps unsweetened cocoa. (You might substitute cinnamon here, I think.)

Directions:
· Combine mascarpone, pumpkin, cream, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl, beating on low until the ingredients are mixed together, then beating on high until little peaks form. Don’t overbeat.

· Combine espresso and liqueur in a cup or small bowl and set aside until room temperature.

· Arrange half of the ladyfingers in an 8-inch square baking or serving dish. Evenly slosh half of the coffee mixture over them. Slather half of the pumpkin cream mixture on top. Add another layer of lady fingers. Drizzle the rest of the coffee over them. Then add the remaining pumpkin cream on top.

· Refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight.

· Dust with the cocoa before serving.

Makes enough for 12 and can sit in the fridge, covered, for up to 3 days.

Derek Dunne is a Cordon Bleu-trained food critic for the prestigious New York Monitor, whose scathing review of a popular Italian bistro has driven away all but the most loyal neighborhood patrons.

Lucrezia Serafina DiCicco is a clumsy business school drop-out, working as a chef and scrambling to keep her family's restaurant afloat, after her father develops diabetes and is banned from his kitchen for his own good.

Now, with The Monitor folding, Derek is searching for his next career path and longing to get back to his first love—cooking—while Lu is desperate for an influx of cash to save the struggling restaurant…even as her father puts his foot down about non-family employees.

Derek and Lu embark on a marriage of inconvenience to save the restaurant. But can Lu ever really trust the man who nearly destroyed her family, once noted her initials spelled “LSD,” and her food was like a “bad trip?”

Or will it be their hearts on the chopping block?

~ ~ ~

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The bread pudding which is posted here and the pecan pie (posted on my webpage today) figure in the first seduction scene of The Caretaker’s Lady, my spicy new release from Liquid Silver Books. Read the blurb that follows the recipe to meet John and Cathy, then check out the excerpt at ritabay.com to see how the meal and seduction progresses.

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Rita Bay’s Bread Pudding with Bourbon Sauce

3 Cups bread cut in one-inch cubes

2 Cups milk

3 eggs

1 Tbl vanilla

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

4 Tbl margarine, melted

1/2 C raisins (soaked in water with a little bourbon added)

1/2 C pecans (I soak the pecans with the raisins)

Directions: Heat oven to 350°. Combine milk, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and butter. Beat until well-mixed. Stir in raisins and pecans. Fold in bread cubes and set aside for ten minutes to allow cubes to soak up the liquid. Pour into buttered baking dish and bake for 45 minutes.

Sauce: Boil one stick margarine and one cup white sugar in saucepan until dissolved. Remove from stove and stir in a half-cup of whipping cream (can substitute a half-cup of vanilla ice cream) and a half-cup of bourbon. Serve over warm bread pudding.

Pass the grits and call me y’all. Jasmine Bloom, queen of the bodice rippers for three decades, never thought she would become a victim of writer’s block. When family stress causes Cathy Morrow, who writes as Jasmine Bloom, to miss a deadline, Blaylock Publishing accepts a mysterious invitation for Cathy to visit The Mountain Ridge Resort to revive her muse.

Divorced for two decades with three grown children and two grandsons living in her home, Cathy can’t find the inspiration she needs to write the sizzling-hot romances that gained her fame and fortune. At the resort, Cathy meets a hot maintenance worker who warms the cool nights. Will she be content to role-play his favorite scorching-hot love scenes from her novels then return home to her dull routine?

The caretaker’s job at the resort allows billionaire John Murdock to live the life he loves in the Blue Ridge Mountains and keep a centuries-old family vow. When Cathy Morrow arrives at the resort, she lights a fire he’d banked years ago. Will she look beyond his white hair and menial job to appreciate what he offers—passion with the prospect for love?

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Happy Holidays peeps! This time of year makes me eager for this warm dessert. While it takes a little bit to make, I promise you, the work is totally worth it! Not to mention, the butterscotch is to die for.

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HOLIDAY BREAD PUDDING

IN MIXING BOWL ADD

· 6 EGGS

· ½ TSP SALT

· 1 CUP SUGAR

· ¼ TSP NUTMEG

· ¼ TSP CINNAMON

· 1 oz. BAILEY’S

· WITH A WHISK, MIX INGREDIANTS.

· POUR IN 1 L OF 10% CREAM

· MIX IN WITH EGG MIXTURE

· 8 CUPS OF 1 INCH CUBED BREAD

· ADD 1 DICED GRANNY SMITH APPLE, 1 CUP OF DRIED CRANBERRIES

· SOAK BREAD IN EGG MIXTURE FOR 1 HRS

· GREASE 11X8 BAKING DISH

13X9 BAKING DISH – FILL ¼ OF THE WAY WITH HOT WATER, THEN PLACE 11X8 BAKING DISH INSIDE, PLACE IN A 350 DEGREE PRE-HEATED OVEN FOR 50 MINUTES

BUTTER SCOTCH

4 OZ OF BUTTER, MELTED

2TBSP OF CORN SYRUP

2/3 CUPS OF BROWN SUGAR

STIR UNTIL MIXTURE IS COMBINED & SMOOTH

INCORPORATE 2/3 CUP OF 35% CREAM

MIX WELL

Bastian Wycliffe, the Earl of Wendelhem, has finally moved on…or so he thought. En-route to a hunting trip after over-indulging the night before, he endures a frightful and terribly embarrassing swoon. He’s seen a ghost and her name is Cordelia Waite, the Duchess of Downsbury.

Mrs. Weylen, formerly a duchess, has a secret. All it took was the chance meeting in the inn that fateful night for her memories to come back and haunt her. She makes haste returning to London incognito with the intent to clear up misconceptions and to deliver an ultimatum to her former lover.

Yet, when a new found obsession refuses to accept the truth, and her imprisoned husband discovers she’s still alive, their lives and relationship may be in danger. Second chances have never been more precarious.

Warning: This book has elements of: light bondage, and ménage.

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http://laynapimentel.com

When it comes to quick and popular desserts, nothing's sweeter than a chocolate pie. Here's an updated version of my mother's old-fashioned chocolate custard. Just pour into a pre-baked pie shell for a quick and delicious "homemade" chocolate pie. Enjoy!

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2 cups milk

3/4 cup sugar

3 tbsp. cocoa

2 tbsp. flour

1 egg

2 tbsp. butter

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine milk, sugar, cocoa, flour and egg in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for four to seven minutes, stirring every minute until mixture is thick.

Add butter and vanilla. Stir and pour into prepared pie shell. Refrigerate at least two hours before serving.

Welcome to Union

Population: 994

Town motto: Where no secret goes untold

His father’s death forces Dr. Ryan Williams to return to the home—and the woman—he’d left behind ten years earlier. Ryan knows it’s best to avoid Union sweetheart and police officer Emily Winters during his visit. But how? Stuck in this small town, fighting an attraction that hasn’t diminished over time, the sparks are unavoidable—and so are the rumors. The same rumors that made him leave Union in the first place…

Experience taught Emily to keep her guard—and her panties—up. Until Ryan returns as suddenly as he left, tempting her with promises she already knows he can’t keep. Or so she thinks. This new adult Ryan is one capable of forever and, God-willing, forgiveness. Because even as they learn to trust and love each other again, Emily knows once she reveals her secret, heartbreak is inevitable.

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www.tinaevaughn.com