desired color.
Let the bowl sit on the countertop for 15 minutes to thicken the frosting.
When the time is up, give the bowl a stir and remove your cake from the refrigerator. Frost your Ultimate Strawberry Bundt Cake with the frosting and don’t forget the sides of the crater in the middle. You don’t need to frost all the way down to the bottom of the crater. That’s almost impossible. Just frost an inch or so down the sides of the crater.
Hannah’s 3rd Note: You can decorate the top of your cake with fresh strawberries cut in half, cut side down, if you wish. If you are baking this cake for Valentine’s Day, you can decorate the top of your cake with the little pastel-colored hearts that have sayings on them.
Return your cake to the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before cutting it and serving it to your guests.
Hannah’s 4th Note: You can also use this frosting on cookies. Simply frost and let your cookies sit on wax paper on the kitchen counter until the frosting has set and is dry to the touch.
Yield: This frosting will frost a Bundt Cake, a batch of cookies, a 9-inch by 13-inch cake, or a round two-tier layer cake.
Chapter Three
It didn’t take very long for Hannah’s cake to fill the condo with a mouthwatering aroma. Hannah smiled as she realized that her mood had improved dramatically. The storm, which was now officially categorized as a blizzard, continued to rage outside, but Hannah knew that she was in no danger. She had plenty of food in the pantry, her electricity would not fail for more than a few seconds, thanks to the generator in the garage that served all four units in her building, and her cable television would continue to operate. When her condo complex was built, all the utilities had been run underground. It had been one of the selling points that Al Percy, their local real-estate agent, had mentioned when he’d shown Hannah and Delores the condo.
Rayne Phillips, Dee Dee Hughes, and Chuck Wilson were still warning viewers about the “blizzard of the century.” Hannah picked up the remote control and switched to one of the movie channels included in her cable package. The channel was running a romance movie, and that was the last thing she needed to see. Her romance, along with her marriage to Ross, had turned to ashes.
A sigh escaped, unbidden, from Hannah’s throat. If things had turned out differently, she would be sitting here on the comfortable leather couch with her loving husband. Then a blizzard would be just another adventure, a welcome excuse to stay home and be with each other.
The memories of her time with Ross began to surface. She’d made him hot chocolate the way he loved it, with a scoop of marshmallow fluff sprinkled with cinnamon on top. They had cuddled up together in this very spot, sipping from their mugs and laughing at the marshmallow mustaches that both of them had worn as they drank.
Hannah roused herself from the happy memory. Thinking about the good times would only make her wish that things could be different. It was time to face reality. Things couldn’t be different, not anymore. The situation was not salvageable. Ross had abandoned her and gone back to his wife. Memories of their romance had no place in her life. She had loved him with all her heart, but now that she knew the truth, her love had turned to a darker emotion. Ross had betrayed her. He’d lied and played her for a fool. She had to harden her heart against him.
Hannah’s living room window rattled with each gust of wind, and all she could see was a sheet of shifting, swirling white outside. Normally, she could see Marguerite and Clara Hollenbeck’s living room window from hers, but the visibility was down to only inches outside. The escalating storm suited Hannah’s mood perfectly. Her very soul felt icy cold. Ross was out of her life forever and she couldn’t let herself miss him.
The questions that plagued her sleepless nights emerged with the howling of the wind. Had there been warning signs that she should have spotted? Should she have insisted on a longer engagement so that she could find out more about Ross’s life during the time they’d been apart? Was she a fool for missing him so dreadfully, even now?
There was a knock, a very loud knock that successfully competed with the howling wind. Hannah moved