“We haven’t won yet, Alex,” I reminded him.
“Oh, we’ve won, Sweet Tart.” He smiled, calling me the nickname I had earned from him on the show and which had kind of stuck to me like cotton candy. Yeah, he’s got me talking in terms of food about everything, now, too.
Giddy with excitement, I glanced up at Alex to find his eyes moist, as if he was on the verge of tears. I planted a kiss on his perfectly sculpted lips and whispered, “Let’s go get the prize money, then, shall we?”
Alex led us back on stage, and the lights dimmed as the host of the show called us up to take our places under the spotlights.
Once again, Nicodemus appeared on the large screen.
This is it. The moment we’ve all been waiting for.
Alex held my hand clasped and brought it to his lips. Frenchie stood behind Olive, squeezing her broad shoulders. Olive glared at Alex and me, ignoring Nicodemus while he tasted both desserts on the life-size screen in the studio.
Pulling the swizzle stick out of the bacon ice cream Alex and I had labored over a second time for the finale, Nicodemus held the candied stick up like a magic wand and revealed a dazzling grin. “Bacon ice cream? Sounds disgusting to this old guy, but, like I told someone once, if you don’t take a chance, you’ll never know. If I hadn’t tried this bacon-flavored ice cream, I would never have believed how delicious it could be. The winners of the seventh season of Happy Endings are Tonya and Alex! Congratulations to you both. This is a real happy ending as far as I can see.” Nicodemus smiled at us and winked into the camera.
I could have sworn he’d winked right at me, even though he stood outside before the throngs of people who’d come to the studio to see the winners announced and I stood inside on a large stage before thousands of hungry eyes.
Alex lifted me into the air and spun me around as confetti fell from above and we were handed the biggest check I had ever seen—so big it had taken four production assistants to carry it. It was made out to Alex and me for one million dollars!
“I love you!” Alex blurted, stopping me dead in my tracks with a kiss.
“I love you, too, bacon boy!” I cried, laughing. “We’ve just won a million dollars! What’s for dessert?”
“Oh, you just wait and see.” Alex grinned.
The shot of Nicodemus still loomed on the large screen, as Alex and I accepted the larger-than-life check which would change so many people’s lives. I winked up at Nicodemus’s smiling face and watched in amazement as his image faded away before my very eyes.
A gasp rose like thunder from the audience. Where had he gone? Nicodemus had vanished into thin air. The last image caught on screen showed him licking his ice cream-coated lips and whispering, “I love happy endings.”
Epilogue
Fairy tales do come true. It can happen for you. If you would like to enjoy any of the wet and messy sploshing fun Alex and Tonya experienced in this story, here are the recipes for some of the foods they used to get down and dirty.
Happy Sploshing!
Recipes
Bacon Chocolate Cupcakes
Happy Endings Episode One Winning Recipe
(Makes 2 dozen cupcakes)
Ingredients
12 slices bacon
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup black iced coffee
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until evenly browned. Drain, crumble into tiny bits, and set aside.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, 3/4 cup cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center and pour in the eggs, coffee, buttermilk, and oil. Stir just until blended. Mix in 3/4 of the bacon, reserving the rest for garnish on the frosting. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in the pan set over a wire rack. When cool, arrange the cupcakes on a serving platter. Frost with chocolate frosting and sprinkle reserved bacon crumbles on top, letting the grease drizzle into frosting. Dust with remaining cocoa powder.
Bacon-and-Eggs Jell-O Shots
Happy Endings Episode Two Winning Recipe
(Makes 18 Jell-O shots)
Ingredients
1 cup water
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup salted-caramel-flavored syrup
1 cup bacon-flavored vodka, chilled
1/4 cup cooked bacon, finely diced
Gummy fried eggs for topping
Directions
Prepare the bacon gelatin.
Pour the water into a saucepan and add the gelatin to it, allowing it to bloom for 1 to 2 minutes. Heat the water over low heat and stir the gelatin with a whisk until it dissolves.
Add the salted-caramel-flavored syrup to the mixture.
Add the bacon-flavored vodka and stir the wet ingredients with a whisk.
Sprinkle the bacon on top of the gelatin.
Pour the gelatin into a loaf pan and refrigerate it for several hours or overnight.
Add the eggs. Make sure to wait to place the gummy eggs on top of the shots until just before you serve them. The water in the gelatin will cause the gummy eggs to deteriorate in quality.
Loosen the gelatin from the sides of the pan.
Invert the loaf pan carefully over a cutting board.
Ease the gelatin onto the cutting board.
Cut the gelatin into squares with a knife and place the squares on a chilled serving tray.
Place one gummy fried egg on the top of each shot just before serving.
Bacon Ice Cream with Bacon-Flavored Swizzle Sticks
Happy Endings Grand Prize Winning Recipe
Ingredients
For the ice cream:
3 large egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
1 cup maple syrup
2 cups heavy cream
For the bacon-brittle swizzle sticks:
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, plus a little more for the baking sheet
3 strips smoked bacon
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Directions
Make the ice cream—here’s how:
Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and salt in a bowl until pale yellow. Place in a saucepan and whisk in milk. Cook over medium heat. Stir until almost simmering. Mixture should be thick. Stir in the maple syrup. Place in a bowl and refrigerate until cold for about 30 minutes.
Make the bacon-brittle swizzle stick—here’s how:
Butter a rimmed baking sheet. Cook the bacon in a medium skillet over medium heat until crisp; transfer crisp bacon to paper towels, and let drain. Let the bacon cool. Finely chop bacon.
Cook the sugar in a pan over medium to high heat. Stir constantly, until it melts and turns golden, about 5 minutes. Continue to cook and stir until light brown.
Remove from the heat. Stir in the butter. Stir in the baking soda. Pour onto the prepared baking sheet.
For swizzle sticks, twirl mixture around wooden fondue sticks, allowing a good buildup, and place onto wax paper and let cool until set, about 15 minutes. You will need to act quickly so the mixture does not harden before you are done swizzling. Reserve the remaining brittle for bacon brittle in ice cream or as garnish on top. Break into very small bite-size pieces then smash about one-third of the brittle into shards with a meat mallet or heavy skillet.
Stir the cream into the chilled custard. Churn in an ice cream maker. Stir in the bacon-brittle shards or adorn with swizzle sticks for decoration. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze until firm, at least 3 hours
Bacon Milk Shake
Ingredients
3 tablespoons maple syrup
2 slices cooked bacon
2 cups vanilla ice cream
½ cup whole milk
Directions
In small pan, heat maple syrup and one slice of the bacon over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside so as to infuse bacon flavor into maple syrup.
In a blender, place vanilla ice cream and milk. Blend until combined.
Remove bacon from syrup and discard bacon.
Add maple syrup to milk and ice cream mixture.
Blend to combine.
Pour milk shake between 2 glasses.
Crumble remaining slice of cooked bacon and sprinkle on top of milk shakes.
Sploshing Custard
Ingredients
3 cups of milk
4 eggs
3 tablespoons cornstarch
½ teaspoon of salt
½ cup of sugar
1 tablespoon butter
Vanilla extract
Directions
Mix 3 cups of milk, 3 tablespoons of cornstarch, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of butter, and a pinch of vanilla extract together in a pan until well blended.
Heat the ingredients over medium heat until they simmer.
Remove from the heat.
Whisk 4 egg yolks in a medium-sized bowl.
Pour the cream into the egg yolks and continue to whisk the yolks.
Pour the mixture back into the pan and heat it over medium heat.
Stir it constantly with a wooden spoon as it continues to heat up.
Cook until the custard thickens to the desired consistency which should be rather runny for proper sploshing.
Do not allow the custard set.
~A Note from the Author~
How Six Men Got It On is a retelling of the Grimm classic fairytale How Six Men Got on in the World. I am a professional storyteller as well as a romance author and I completely fell in love with the Beyond Fairytales Series from Decadent Publishing. What could be better than a good romance mixed with a fairytale? For me personally, as I often tell my twitter followers, “I don’t do heartbreaking and intense, I do sexy, cheeky and yummy,” with the hope that my stories are always fun and delicious, and will leave readers wanting more, and maybe even wanting to try some themselves. That’s where I got the idea to include the recipes for the confections that Alex and Tonya cook on the reality TV show in an appendix at the end of my book, so that if the recipes sounded good to the reader while they were reading about Alex and Tonya making them (and sploshing around in them), they can try them at home. I have tried them, especially the Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes, which may sound gross, but they are delicious in a very sensual way, for as Chef Anthony Bourdain says himself, “Good food does lead to sex. As it should.”
Bon Appetit!
I can be reached at [email protected]. Feel free to contact me!
Also from Decadent Publishing
www.decadentpublishing.com
One Night with the Best Man by Sara Daniel
Chapter One
Hell yeah, Alex Cortez wanted to be the best man at his sister’s destination wedding. A party in Jamaica or maybe Bora Bora. Bring it on, baby.
Then Luciana had hit him with the real destination: the dilapidated farm in Iowa where they’d grown up.
Hell. No.
Except he couldn’t decline, not after she’d waited a full year while he completed his last tour with the Marines so he could attend.
Maneuvering his sports car onto the rutted gravel road, he pulled to the side before the farm came into view over the hill. When the sale had gone through the previous year, he’d considered it the best day of his life, despite a round of enemy fire and a dinner of MREs.
Why Luciana wanted to have her big day at the place that had stolen their father’s life and mother’s health then tried to kill her soul, he had no freaking idea. The filtered, air-conditioned air did nothing to disguise the scent of manure, livestock, and fresh-cut hay from outside. He sneezed twice and cursed several more times.
One more mile. He’d survived the deserts of the Middle East and warring factions in Africa. He could suck up his abhorrence of the farm for two days.
Keeping his gaze glued to the road, Alex gritted his teeth as gravel dust and rocks slapped the paint job of the car that, up until a few months ago, he’d only been able to fantasize about buying. But the investment in his buddy Luke’s identity theft app had paid off so big, paying cash for his sweet ride hadn’t dented his bank account.
But, all the money in the world couldn’t help him avoid the upcoming weekend. He steered into the driveway, lifting his gaze just enough to take in the parking situation, but not enough to check out the sad state of the house or the barn. Adding his car to the row designated for the rehearsal guests, he inhaled and exhaled several times before exiting.
An excellent landscaping service, giant white tent, and flowered archway had transformed the normally overgrown grass lot into a manicured lawn ready to host a classy, outdoor wedding. By focusing on the nuptials, he’d ignore the real setting and maybe come through the weekend unscathed.
“Alejandro, you arrived.” Luciana waved and beamed at him, her smile too relieved for him not to feel guilty for giving her reason to worry he might not show.
He joined his sister in the open-sided tent, hugging her. Family members and friends milled around, doing a fabulous job of pretending they preferred the manure-scented air over the ocean breeze of a tropical island.
“You look gorgeous.” Not carrying the weight of a two-hundred-acre dairy farm on her shoulders had done wonders for her. Beyond radiating happiness, she managed to project an image of utter relaxation, on the eve of the biggest day of her life, no less.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am to have my two favorite men in the same room together.” Her smile carried an extra-special sparkle as she faced her fiancé, Blake Remington.
Alex offered his hand to the other man. “I’m in your debt.” Literally.
Blake had solved the family’s insurmountable money troubles when Alex hadn’t had a cent to contribute and then Blake had refused his every effort to repay him from his newly-flush bank account.
“There is no debt,” Blake assured him, his handshake solid and sincere. “If anything, I’m in yours.”
Because he’d set his sister up on a one-night stand that had led the two of them to reunite after fifteen years apart—an act of selfish desperation so Alex wouldn’t be forced to return to farm work.
“If you wanted to repay me, you could have found a nicer location for this event.”
“Dr. Gundersen was very generous in allowing us to take over the yard,” Luciana said.
“She probably needed the money. Or maybe she hoped we’d all take over the milking for a couple days.” Alex would pity the woman, except the gorgeous agricultural professor had bought the place despite a host of more palatable options.
“I’d hoped no responsibility and a boatload of money would make you less cynical,” Luciana chided.
He wasn’t a cynic—except when it came to the farm.
“How long do you intend to ignore your mother, Alejandro?” a woman in a folding chair nearby demanded in rapid-fire Spanish.
He embraced her. “Sorry. I didn’t see you. I would never ignore you, Mamá.”
“Did you bring a girl with you?”
To the farm? Not a chance. “I haven’t been out of the Marines long enough to find a place to call home, let alone meet someone.”
“No, no. You meet someone first. Then you make your home together,” Mamá said. “Another wedding in a couple of months would be perfect.”
He didn’t want to be tied to anything he couldn’t fit in his car, let alone a woman who would expect something from him. For the first time in his life, he was free, and he intended to savor it—for years, possibly decades. He needed to find some
one to hang out with who wouldn’t aid his mother’s quest to marry him off.
Dr. Susan Gundersen approached the tent. Well, well. Talk about perfect timing. Not even his mother would consider tying him to the person who’d taken over their old home. And dang, the woman was even more gorgeous than he remembered. Maybe the weekend wouldn’t be so awful, after all.
“Excuse me, Mamá. Our hostess needs some assistance.” He patted her hand and escaped.
Being a red-blooded male, he checked the professor out as he sauntered toward her. She had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, dark-red hair, and the svelte, poised figure of a model. Alex had always had an irrational weakness for blue eyes.
Luckily, hair color and body type didn’t hold any special power over him, but he still recognized a hot woman when he saw one. If all college professors looked like her, he ought to continue his schooling. “You might not remember me, but I’m—”
“Alejandro,” she finished. “I remember.”
“Alex,” he corrected. Sure, he could speak Spanish and loved his mother’s to-die-for enchiladas, but he also lived and breathed baseball and had given Uncle Sam over a decade of his life. His mother and sister hung on to their Hispanic heritage, but he was 100 percent American.
“How’s your gallbladder, Professor?”
The one time they’d come face-to-face, she’d been sharing a sterile room with his mother and had the misfortune of wearing a tacky hospital gown. That chance encounter, combined with her career in agricultural studies specializing in organic dairy farming, had convinced his mother to sell her the farm.
“No idea. I haven’t had any contact with it in a year.” Her lips quirked.
“It never calls? You two used to be so close.”
As her smile widened, his own faded. He needed to shut up. Despite the thrill of flirting with a woman who had more letters behind her name than he’d ever had in his, her excitement about fields of cow pies and dilapidated buildings meant she could only be a distraction from his mother’s matchmaking, not a woman he could consider hooking up with.
How Six Chefs Got It On Page 6