A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet
Page 18
Orange Butter Frosting
2 tablespoons butter
2½ cups confectioners’ sugar
3 tablespoons orange juice
1 teaspoon orange peel, grated
pinch of salt
Cream butter. Add sugar gradually, alternating with enough orange juice to make the frosting the right consistency for spreading. Stir in orange peel and salt.
Mamaw Davis’s Chocolate Pudding
¾ cup sugar
3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 heaping tablespoons cocoa powder (I like Hershey’s)
2 eggs
2 egg yolks (that’s not a typo—that would be 4 egg yolks total, or two days’ worth of your recommended cholesterol intake)
2 cups whole milk
2 tablespoons Land O’Lakes butter
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
In a medium-size saucepan (no heat yet), stir together sugar, flour, and cocoa powder until there are no lumps. (I actually run mine through a sifter, but hey, I’m high maintenance.)
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and egg yolks.
Fold eggs and egg yolks into dry mixture.
Once eggs are fully incorporated, add milk. Stir until combined, and then turn on stove to a medium-high heat. You don’t want to boil this custard, so be careful you don’t have too much heat going or the pudding will curdle.
Stir or whisk mixture constantly until it starts to thicken—about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla.
Makes 4–6 servings, which I pour immediately into individual dessert bowls. (It cools quicker that way.)
Note: This pudding is also a great pie filling. Just bake the pie crust according to instructions, add filling, whip up some meringue, lightly brown meringue, and prepare for the undying devotion of your family and friends.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Bill Jensen, agent and encourager extraordinaire, for sharing wisdom, offering guidance, and clinging to a deep, steady reverence for what the Lord does around the table.
To Stephanie Rische, for praying faithfully, recognizing that I really do say “the Google,” and making this book so much better through your loving attention to detail.
To Lisa Jackson and the Tyndale team, for believing in these stories, tolerating my love for ALL CAPS (and parentheses), and seeing what I couldn’t. It has been my joy to work with you.
To Emma Kate, Laura, Marion, Elizabeth, Melissa, Daphne, Elise, Tracey, Wendi, and Katy, for being the reasons why I don’t understand mean girls. You are the sweetest, most supportive, most hilarious friends on earth. And you’ve encouraged me to write since I was nineteen and prone to things like impromptu perms and crispy bangs. I love y’all.
To Melanie, for walking arm-in-arm through unchartered territory these last seven years. It has been an adventure, my friend, and I’m so thankful that the Lord knew we’d need each other. I look forward to many more years of blog therapy, SEC analysis, and podcast technical difficulties. You are the best gift the Internet has ever given me.
To my blogger friends, for keeping my feed reader full, for writing so beautifully, for having big, wide-open hearts, and for making me laugh and think. A lot.
To the sweetest blog readers anyone could want, for showing up every day and never complaining when I post about football—AGAIN. Your prayers and e-mails and comments have spurred me on, and when I say that there never would have been a book without you, I mean it. I am grateful from the bottom of my heart.
To Mrs. Reynolds, Mrs. Scarborough, Mrs. Robbins, Mrs. Bruckmeier, and Dr. Hargrove, for teaching so well and grading so thoughtfully. You are amazing, gifted women, and I am forever indebted to you.
To my BCS family, for serving selflessly, working tirelessly, and making much of Jesus every single day. Your courage and your dedication inspire me. And also: you are really stinkin’ funny. I have never stopped thanking God for you.
To Dr. K and Mary Jo, for welcoming us to Birmingham with open arms. Your servant-hearted example has impacted our family in ways you may never know this side of heaven. You are such a blessing to us!
To Wednesday night Bible study, for teaching and listening and praying and loving. I’m so grateful for each one of you.
To Sister, for remembering, well, everything and filling in my memory gaps (in great detail, I might add). You have given me a love for finding the funny in the middle of the ordinary (“I like mustard on my crackers”), and you tell stories better than I could ever write them. That’s the truth. Hail State and Go ’Dogs.
To my big ole family (the one I was born into and the one I married), for teaching me how to love and to laugh, for sharing your unwavering faith, and for insisting that we make time for the table. Thank you for trusting me to tell our stories. I love y’all so much.
To Alex, for stealing my heart and multiplying my joy. You are a source of endless delight to your daddy and me, and I am so tickled that I get to be your mama. You make me proud every single day, and when I think about how I wrote a big chunk of this book with you sitting beside me, it makes my heart smile.
To David, for being steady, patient, and supportive (which is so helpful considering that I can err on the side of being a white-hot mess-o-crazy). Plus, you make me laugh every single day. Well, almost. Not so much on the days when you sing that line from that Jason Aldean song approximately 602 times. But other than that: ACES. I love you.
And finally, to Jesus: “E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply / Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With an urge to document the hilarity of family life, Sophie Hudson began writing her blog in November 2005. Since then she has seen her blog readership grow beyond what she would have thought possible. Sophie hopes that through her stories, women will find encouragement and hope in the everyday, joy-filled moments of life. In addition to her blog, BooMama.net, Sophie writes on a regular basis for HomeLife magazine and is a regular contributor to the Pioneer Woman’s blog. She also serves as co-emcee for LifeWay’s annual dotMOM event and participates in Compassion International’s blogger initiative. Sophie lives with her husband and son in Birmingham, Alabama.