Let Vampires Eat Cake (A Recipe and a Vampire Necklace Giveaway!)

Read on for a chance to win this cool "vampire bites" one-size-fits-all choker made with garnet-colored teardrop crystals, made by the folks at Smitten-2-b-Bitten.

'Tis the season for cooking. And like my favorite urban fantasy heroines, I don't cook. I can cook, but it's not something I enjoy. I started flipping through some of my favorite UF books to see if I could find a cook but the closest I could find was Sookie Stackhouse, who occasionally whips up a casserole and a plate of biscuits to feed her favorite shapeshifters. Guess UF heroines are too busy saving the world to pick up a saucepan.

DJ, the heroine of my New Orleans novels, is big on Cheetos and Diet Dr. Pepper unless she can pick dinner up (which is often). Then she'll go for oyster po-boys or muffalettas, beignets or bread pudding.

So in honor of my and DJ's pathetic cooking skills, I'll offer this "Cheater German Chocolate Cake" recipe from my writing partner Suse over at Wastepaper Prose, which she swears by and which she has (unadvisedly) talked me into making this year.

Cheater German Chocolate Cake
1 package yellow cake mix
1 3.5-oz package instant vanilla pudding mix
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). Grease and flour three 8-inch cake pans. Combine the ingredients. Mix and pour batter into the pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until cake tests done. Set aside to cool

Icing (because it isn't frosting in the South, y'all):
1 12-oz can evaporated milk
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flaked coconut
In a medium saucepan, mix the evaporated milk, brown sugar, egg yolks and butter.  Cook over medium heat until thick. Remove from heat and beat until partially cooled. Beat in the vanilla, then stir in coconut and pecans.

I will be making this cake on Thursday. Last time I made a three-layer cake (a Lane Cake, the unofficial State Cake of Alabama), it tilted like the Tower of Pisa, and I blamed it on the high water table in New Orleans. Before that, while I was living in San Diego, I made a three-layer Red Velvet cake, and when a ginormous crevice split down the middle I blamed it on a mythical earthquake only the cake and I could feel.

I think my vampires have the right idea. A simple, one-ingredient diet, served warm.

Comment with your favorite holiday food, and on Christmas Eve, I'll be drawing for the Vampire Necklace. You know the drill: +1 for comment, +1 for blog follow, +1 for Twitter follow @Suzanne_Johnson, +1 for tweet or retweet. Go to it!