Nora Henderson is of the opinion that chocolate cures almost everything.
Which, among a few other reasons, is why she opened her bakery in the small town of Jupiter, Maine five years ago.
People come from miles for her chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. Customers almost come to blows over the last almond croissant. Some even say her chocolate chip cookies help ease the burn of heartbreak.
Nora’s life is good. On the surface, at least.
Underneath the frosting and the sweet décor of her bakery is a broken engagement, doubt and anxiety spirals.
In short, Nora Henderson is a mess.
Not someone Rowan Derrick would ever be interested in. He’s the gruff veteran who owns a construction company, who broods his way around town and can wear the crap out of a backward baseball cap.
He stars in almost every one of her fantasies. She expected him to stay there, to remain her imaginary boyfriend and customer … nothing else.
But Rowan Derrick has had his eye on Nora for a while. Little does she know, she stars in every one of his fantasies too. And now that the beautiful baker is no longer engaged, he’s going to make her his
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Foreword
I had so much fun writing this book. If you follow me on any of my social media platforms, you may have seen snippets of my messy kitchen while I was baking. I have dubbed myself ‘The Chaotic Baker,’ since whenever I bake, our kitchen explodes. Not literally. Luckily.
An idea bloomed from that. About a story with a woman who has a lot of quirks. Who loves sugar. Who is wildly successful. Who battles with anxiety daily. Who falls for a grumpy badass who has loved her since the moment he laid eyes on her.
Nora was born.
It seemed like a no-brainer to have recipes to go along with each chapter, since I wanted to give my fellow chaotic bakers a chance to try fun and different things. Not all of the recipes are my own. In fact, most of them aren’t. I do tend to make little changes here and there to original recipes, so if I did, I was sure to note it.
If you do want to bake as you read, I highly recommend this book, Dessert Person by Claire Saffitz. Most of the recipes you’ll find come from there.
We’ll start with a treasured favorite, just in case you want some cookie dough with your smut.
I know I do.
Us Kiwis will know and love the humble ‘Santé Biscuit.’ These cookies (as you Americans say) bring so much nostalgia to me. I remember making them with my mum, my nana, my girlfriends. There have been many times in my life when I was heartbroken, sad, stressed, overwhelmed, and I turned to these cookies to get me through it.
Full disclosure: I make the cookies purely so I can eat the dough and very few cookies actually make it into the oven.
This isn’t me recommending you eat raw cookie dough, of course. That’s up to you.
Okay, let’s get to the recipe so we can get to the book.
Also, if you’re making this for a bunch of people (and not just for yourself on a Friday night, which I do regularly) I recommend doubling the recipe for higher yield and more dough to eat during the process.
Santé Biscuits
•1/2 cup of butter, softened
•1/4 cup sugar
•5 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk (the original recipe calls for three, but I always add more)
•1 1/2 cups flour
•1 tsp baking powder
•3/4 cup chocolate chips
•1/2 tsp vanilla
Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a baking tray with wax paper.
Cream together butter, sugar and condensed milk until light and fluffy.
Combine all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then sift them into the creamed mixture, mixing until combined. Add the chocolate chips.
Roll the mixture into balls, place them on the baking tray and then flatten them with a fork.
Bake for 15 mins or until golden at the edges but still soft.
Leave on the tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a baking tray to cool (even though they are best eaten warm).
Chapter
One
Recipe: Tan Slice
My name is Nora Henderson, and I am currently having a pulmonary embolism.
If you didn’t know, a pulmonary embolism is when a blood clot develops in the body then travels to a lung where it disrupts air flow.
The symptoms are a sudden shortness of breath, chest pain, a feeling of anxiety, lightheadedness, heart palpitations and sweating. If you have deep vein thrombosis you will also have pain, swelling and warmth in your leg.
If not treated, it can cause serious problems, ultimately leading to death.
Death.
Right now, I could be dying.
“Nora, do the muffins have peanuts in them?” a voice asked, interrupting visions of what my funeral might look like.
I thought it would be small but well attended. The flowers would be white. Lilies. Or roses. At the church down by the water, even though I wasn’t a particularly religious person. It was pretty there. A nice place for a funeral.
I blinked my pink, girly, magnificent, orderly kitchen into focus and sharpened my attention on the fresh-faced, blonde-haired Australian who had just asked me a question.
“What?” I asked, my voice scratchy and dry. Likely from the trouble I had breathing. Caused by the blood clot clogging my arteries.
“The muffins,” she said. “I would’ve just lied and said no if the customer in question hadn’t stressed their life-threatening peanut allergy. I don’t want to get sued if they like, keel over and die or something.”
My breathing evened out, my heart slowing now that I had something to focus on.
Fiona was obsessed with being sued. Apparently, you couldn’t sue people in Australia like you could here.
“No, there are no peanuts in the muffins,” I reassured her.
She chewed her lip. “Can you come and tell the customer? I think I kind of shattered my credibility with them. I told them that no one had died from our products… that we know of. It would sound better coming from the person who actually baked the muffins. And liability would shift to you.” She winked before her blue eyes flickered over me. “Plus, you look like you’re spiraling back here. What is it today?”