Yum. Cream Puff Bars Recipe and The Road Home by Malissa Chapin

Yum. Cream Puff Bars Recipe and The Road Home by Malissa Chapin
Sunday, September 1, 2024 by Sally Jo Pitts

Categories: Books & Food / Recommended Books

Investigating Food Used in Novels

This month’s food scene and recipe comes from Malissa Chapin’s novel, The Road Home.

Here’s the scene:

Deercrest’s streets buzzed with traffic. Cows hung from the light poles,
and cows or cow print curtains hung in every window along Main Street. A
teenager in a cow costume took selfies with children. Music drifted from
the park where food trucks sold dairy treats. Cadence sniffed the air
for deep-fried cheese curds—she would grab some after her shift.
Chalk drawings of cows and barns covered the sidewalks. Children with
painted cow-print faces licked large cones of frozen custard. Wisconsin
loved dairy, and Deercrest loved June Dairy Month. The town became
Cowcrest for the weekend festival, and people came from all over to
celebrate.
Cadence smelled coffee and vanilla when she opened the door of the busy
café. “Sorry I’m late!” she hollered.
“Did you stop at the antique store?” Laura called from the cash
register.
She shrugged. “Sorry. Couldn’t help it.”
“No worries,” Laura said, laughing. “Grab an apron and get me another
tray of cream puff bars.”
Laura’s cream puff bars won an award from a local travel magazine, and
every customer purchased one with their coffee or took several to go.
Cadence and Laura baked hundreds of bars every day last week. The
freezer racks held trays of cream puff bars ready to top with rich
honey-sweetened cream.
Laura’s daughter, Allie, waved her spatula when Cadence hurried past.
“Morning, Cadence. Mom stuck me on whip cream duty today.”

Malissa shares this Cream Puff Bars Recipe from her novel:

Cream Puff Bars, Muddy Cup Café

For the recipe, Click Here.

More about The Road Home:

Hiding from her tainted past. Will unraveling a long-buried deception
let the truth set her free?

Wisconsin, present day. Audra March’s adult life is haunted by a teenage
misstep. Taking an assumed name and enjoying simple things, the
thirty-something comes upon a vintage recipe box while thrift shopping
and hunts down the owner’s daughter. So when a longtime adversary
threatens her with blackmail, she jumps at the invitation to escape to
the dead lady’s estate and avoid an old enemy.

Kentucky, 1940’s. Ida Bealle Horne aches for a baby. Deeply in love with
her preacher husband, she despairs that God will never grace her
Appalachian home with the laughter of a child. So when a knock at the
door comes one stormy night, she thanks the Almighty when a granny
shoves a newborn into her arms.

Stumbling across a collection of letters, Audra unearths a secret its
owner took to the grave and embarks on a path of surprising
consequences. And though Ida Bealle can’t bear to admit to her now-grown
daughter they don’t share blood, she feels the burden of the lie
crushing her soul.

Can Audra’s journey bring fulfillment to another and gift her a second
chance?

The Road Home is the emotional first book in a Christian women’s fiction
series. If you like conflicted heroines, tales of redemption, and
dual-timeline stories, then you’ll adore Malissa Chapin’s
generation-spanning saga.

About the Author:

Malissa Chapin has a heart for writing stories filled with humor, faith,
and truth. She’s always adored reading excellent books and is tickled to
see her childhood dream of becoming an author finally come true.
Malissa loves creating with words, watercolor, fabric, and yarn. You can
find her in her garden, at the piano, homeschooling her bonus baby, or
enjoying a coffee with friends.
She lives and sometimes freezes in Wisconsin with her family and a crazy
cat.
Sign up for her newsletter and be the first to hear about her works in
progress, offers, and fun news. Let me know if you choose to enjoy these yummy treats.