The first typo I became aware of in Chocolate Never Faileth was brought to my attention by my friend TJ, who came to a signing for the book with his wife and kids. He told me about the typo. I didn't believe him. Or, rather, I desperately hoped he was wrong.
The book had been all I worked on for almost a year, shoving my fiction (and creative writing self) aside. At least three people proofed the thing, including me.
On the other hand, I'd already published seven novels. I should have known that mistakes and typos can (and often do) slip through, no matter how carefully the writer and the publishing team work on a book.
As I became aware of a few more errors in the cookbook, I put corrections on my website. Even so, I still get regular questions about the same issues over and over again. I assume that means they aren't finding the list of corrections on my site, so maybe a blog post will help.
They're on THIS PAGE. If I find more things to fix (knock on wood!), that's where I'll put them. Future printings should have these things fixed.
In the meantime, these errors leave us all scratching our heads, wondering how they slipped through and who added them in the first place!
3-MINUTE MICROWAVE CAKE, PAGE 35
A mystery individual added a new first sentence to the instructions. Just ignore "preheat oven to 350." (This is, after all, a MICROWAVE cake.) This is the error TJ told me about. I'm convinced that this sentence didn't exist in the galley proof I saw, and it certainly wan't in my original manuscript. I'm guessing that someone along the pipeline, right before sending the book to press, saw a cake recipe without an oven temperature and added it. We'll never know what happened. Just take a black Sharpie over that bit.
BROWNIE COOKIE BITES, PAGE 55
Here's a situation where my test kitchen notes match the printed book, but the recipe doesn't seem right. The utterly weird thing is that the cookies worked beautifully, multiple times at home (evidence includes the fact that the picture of the cookies on page 54 are from my oven). But as written, they don't work so great. I'm as puzzled as anyone here. Fat is missing, so add some, around 1/3 to 1/2 cup. I'd go with butter, but oil works too.
HEAVENLY CHOCOLATE BARS, PAGE 70
Somehow adding flour got inserted into the instructions for the topping. I get people absolutely panicking about what to do because no flour is listed in the ingredients.
No flour is correct; ignore that word.
MOM'S HONEY CHOCOLATE-MOUSSE ICING, PAGE 176
This typo is in the anecdote above the recipe, which reads "Read Food Chocolate Cake." That should, of course, be Real Food.
CHOCOLATE PAVLOVA, PAGE 193
The anecdote in the original printing states that the countries who claim this dessert as their own are New Zealand and Austria. That should be Australia. (Yes, I know the difference between the two!)
To date, these are the only issues that I'm aware of. The Brownie Cookie Bites and Heavenly Chocolate Bars are the two issues that people contact me about most.
Hope this helps if you use the book for holiday treat making!
3 comments:
I made it in the blog! I feel so honored! To be honest, I read the recipe about 4 times before I was confident it was a mistake. Go me and my error finding eyes! (I guess.)
Aren't errors annoying? They'll niggle at us, if we let them.
But you're right. They just have a way of slipping through. And now, they stand corrected!
=)
Well, now I have to make SOMETHING, as this post has kindled a fierce chocolate craving. (Not hard to do with me; my soul is tinder.)
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