#COOKING WITH CLORIS -- PISTACHIO CHOCOLATE CHIP BANANA MUFFINS RECIPE

Those of you familiar with the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries know that I can’t start my workday without an infusion of coffee and something sweet, courtesy of food editor and my bestie Cloris McWerther. Author Lois Winston recently began writing the latest installment in the series (because she takes such joy in dropping dead bodies into my life,) and she asked Cloris to come up with a new muffin recipe. (Did she really think this would make me forget she’s planning to add more murder and mayhem into my future?) 

 

I must admit, though, this muffin is delicious, and because it’s not overly sweet, I didn’t feel guilty helping myself to a second. But muffins are not just for starting the day. Grab your beverage of choice and curl up at any time with this newest baked creation and Seams Like the Perfect Crime, the latest Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery. 

 

Spoiler alert: I do survive to experience whatever torments Lois has planned for me in the next book.

 

Pistachio Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

 

Ingredients:

1-1/2 C. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

3 lg. ripe bananas, mashed

6 T. unsalted butter, melted

1 lg. egg, room temperature

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 T. milk

2/3 C. packed brown sugar (lt. or dark)

1 C. mini chocolate chips

1/2 C. salted pistachio meats

 

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a 12-ct. muffin tin with cupcake liners.

 

In a med. Size bowl, whisk together first five ingredients and set aside.

 

In stand mixer on med. speed, beat together mashed bananas, melted butter, egg, vanilla, milk, and egg.

 

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, beating until combined. Fold in chocolate chips and pistachios.

 

Divide batter evenly into liners. Batter should fill liners to the top.

 

Bake at 435 degrees F. for five minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F. and continue baking for 16 minutes or until toothpick stuck in center of muffins comes out clean. Allow muffins to cool in tin for five minutes, then transfer to wire rack.

Check out all the books Lois Winston has written about me and more at her website.

COOKING WITH CLORIS--AUTHOR BARBARA PRONIN'S NEW WWII HISTORICAL NOVEL AND A RECIPE FOR CHALLAH

Brooklyn born Barbara Pronin is the author of nine novels acclaimed by such notables as Mary Higgins Clark, Tony Hillerman, and Faye Kellerman. Learn about this SoCal transplant and her books on her website.

Full disclosure: my newest novel, a WW II historical called Winter’s End, is not about a crafty killer. It is about three crafty killers, three amazing young women of the Dutch Resistance who learn to blow up trains and take out Nazi tyrants in their mission to help Jewish escapees and save their homeland from starvation in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. 

 

Led by young Evi Strobel, who, I swear, walked into my head one night and would not leave until I told her story, the three are as different as night and day, yet they work together like the tiles in a Rubik’s cube to outfox their Nazi enemies. 

 

Here is 16-yearold Evi, enticing Nazi officers from smoky taverns to their deaths until the fateful night when she is saved from rape by a downed American airman.

 

There is Dr. Zoe Visser, a veterinarian by trade, picking pockets for Dutch ID cards for use by escaping Jews, and leading frightened escapees to their border destinations in the dead of night. 

 

And here is Mila Brouwer, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy collaborator, passing secrets she learns at her father’s dinner table to waiting Resistance leaders.

 

Their stories evolve on several levels – as an unexpected love story, as a coming-of-age story, and as a tale of incredible bravery – a remarkable journey I fell in love with, from its beginnings in the cobblestoned streets of Amsterdam to its ending more than seventy years later and a world away, where one of these women learns to bake a delectable Sabbath challah from her Jewish-American mother-in-law.

 

Winter’s End will be published on May 15, but it is on pre-sale now at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com. While you wait for it, you may want to try your hand at making a golden loaf of homemade challah bread. (It takes a bit of work, but trust me, it’s worth it!)

 

Golden Challah

(makes one loaf)

 

Ingredients:

1 packet dry yeast

1 tsp. sugar

1 cup warm water

1 egg

1/4-cup honey

3 tbs canola oil

1 tsp salt

4 ½ cl. Flour, approximately

 

For the egg wash:

1 egg

2 tbsp. honey

1 tbsp. vanilla

 

Directions:

Dissolve yeast and sugar in 1/4-cup warm water in a medium-sized bowl. Let sit about 15 minutes until thick and frothy.

 

Add the egg, honey, oil, salt, remaining 3/4-cup of water, and 3 cups of the flour. Mix until a loose batter forms. Add the remainder of flour slowly. You may need all, less, or more flour, so use your hands to add it in slowly. The dough should be soft but not sticky. Once the dough has enough flour, knead it for a couple of minutes right in the bowl.

 

Cover the dough with a wet towel and put it in a warm place to rise for about 1—1-1/2 hours. Dough should double in size.

 

Punch the dough down and let it rest for 10 minutes.

 

Divide the dough into thirds and with your hands, roll each piece into a long (13-14 inch) piece. Attach the three pieces at one end, tuck the end under, and braid the dough as you would if it were Evi‘s hair. Tuck the second end under, place the braided loaf on a lightly greased cookie sheet, and let it rise for another 30-40 minutes.

 

Beat the egg with the honey and vanilla and gently brush over the loaf. Bake at 375° F for approximately 35-45 minutes. Loaf should be golden on top, and firm on the bottom.

 

Winter’s End

Luring Nazi officers from smoky taverns to their deaths was not what Evi Strobel bargained for when she agreed to join the Dutch Resistance. But that is what she did until that fateful night she was saved from rape by a downed American Airman.

 

Nor did Zoe Visser expect to be picking pockets for Dutch ID cards for use by escaping Jews, much less leading frightened enemies of the Reich toward uncertain treks to the Belgian border - nor did Mila Brouwer, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy German collaborator, expect to be passing secrets learned at her father's dinner table to help Resistance stalwarts blow up Nazi trains and meeting halls.

 

But four years into German occupation, with the Dutch surviving on boiled tulip bulbs, and Hitler tightening control ahead of advancing Allies, that is what they did. Follow them as Winter's End traces a harrowing journey from the cobblestoned streets of Nazi-occupied Holland to an astonishing finale seventy years later and a world away.

 

Preorder (available 5/15/25)

#COOKING WITH CLORIS--MOLLY MacRAE'S NEW PARANORMAL COZY MYSTERY SERIES AND A FIG WALNUT SPICE MUFFIN #RECIPE

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” In addition to writing the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries, she’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction and Guideposts. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Learn more about Molly and her books at her website where you’ll also find links to her on various social media.  

Thanks for having me back on the blog and in the kitchen, Cloris! Today I’m talking about three things I love—muffins, mysteries, and mollusks. I love islands, too, and those first three things show up on one of my favorite islands, Ocracoke, in Come Shell or High Water, the first book in my new Haunted Shell Shop mystery series.

 

The book opens at the tail end of a hurricane with Maureen Nash arriving on Ocracoke, a small barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. She arrives with a mystery on her hands—Allen, a guy on the island, has been writing letters to her late husband, Jeff, since shortly before Jeff died. The letters tell Jeff he should come to the island to learn something to his advantage. Gee, not at all scammy-sounding. Another letter arrived a few weeks ago and Maureen plans to nose around Ocracoke Village to see if she can figure out what Allen’s game is.

 

So where do mollusks come into the picture? So many ways. Mollusks are the animals that make and live in shells—clams, oysters, snails, scallops, conchs, winkles, mussels, etc. Ocracoke Island (a real place) has some of the best shelling beaches in the country. Allen, the scammy letter writer, owns a shell shop on the island. And Maureen is a malacologist—a scientist who studies shells and the creatures who make them. She’s also a storyteller and collects fables and folktales about shells. 

 

Soon after setting foot in Ocracoke Village Maureen rescues a large, fabulous shell from the storm-tossed surf. Then things begin to go haywire. The next thing she knows, she’s waking up on the floor of the shell shop after an incident she can’t remember. She meets Glady and Burt, a pair of squabbling octogenarian siblings, who live across the street from the shell shop. She thinks she might have tripped over a body in the woods. And then she comes eye to eye with the ghost of an eighteenth-century pirate—unless she’s suffering from a concussion.

 

Operating under these conditions, a woman could use a good muffin. Luckily for Maureen, Burt took up baking during the pandemic and his specialty is muffins. Here he is, now, with a word about his Fig Walnut Spice Muffins and the recipe: 

 

“This is the first muffin recipe I’ve come up with on my own. It makes eighteen muffins. Sometimes seventeen if I’m heavy-handed in filling the muffin cups. When Glady asked if I was ever going to fix the recipe so that it makes a standard dozen, I asked who she was kidding. Seventeen or eighteen muffins is better than a dozen or a baker’s dozen any day. This recipe makes a Burt’s dozen.” 

 

Fig Walnut Spice Muffins

Yield: 18 (or 17)

 

Ingredients for Large Bowl

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon cardamom

1 cup dried figs, stems removed, chopped into raisin-size pieces (or a little bigger) 

1 cup walnuts, chopped

 

Ingredients for Medium Bowl

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 1/4 cup brown sugar 

2 large eggs 

1 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Preheat oven to 400° F.

 

If you have two muffin pans (for a total of 24 muffins), butter 18 of the muffin cups or line them with muffin papers. Otherwise, bake 12 muffins and, after the pan cools, prepare 6 of the cups again to bake the final 6 muffins.

 

In the large mixing bowl, stir together all the ingredients but the figs and walnuts. Then stir in the figs and walnuts.

 

In the medium bowl, melt the butter, then whisk in the brown sugar, yogurt, vanilla, and the eggs. Pour into the large bowl and stir until just combined. Batter will be thick.

 

Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full. Bake until toothpick or tester comes out clean, 15–20 minutes. 

 

Remove from oven and turn muffins out of pan to cool on a wire rack.

 

Come Shell or High Water

A Haunted Shell Shop Mystery, Book 1

 

When widowed folklorist Maureen Nash visits a legendary North Carolina barrier island shell shop, she discovers its resident ghost pirate and the mystery of a local’s untimely death . . .

 

As a professional storyteller, Maureen Nash can’t help but see the narrative cues woven through her life. Like the series of letters addressed to her late husband from a stranger—the proprietor of The Moon Shell, a shop on Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. The store is famous with shell collectors, but it’s the cryptic letters from Allen Withrow, the shop’s owner, that convince Maureen to travel to the small coastal town in the middle of hurricane season. At the very least, she expects she’ll get a good story out of the experience, never anticipating it could end up a murder mystery . . .

 

In Maureen’s first hours on the storm-lashed island, she averts several life-threatening accidents, stumbles over the body of a controversial Ocracoke local, and meets the ghost of an eighteenth-century Welsh pirate, Emrys Lloyd. To the untrained eye, all these unusual occurrences would seem to be random misfortunes, but Maureen senses there may be something connecting these stories. With Emrys’s supernatural assistance, and the support of a few new friends, Maureen sets out unravel the truth, find a killer, and hopefully give this tale a satisfying ending . . . while also rewriting her own.

 

Buy Links

hardcover

paperback

ebook

audiobook

#COOKING WITH CLORIS - AUTHOR KRIS BOCK’S ROCKY ROAD FUDGE BARS AND A BILLIONAIRE COWBOY’S CHRISTMAS

Kris Bock writes novels of romance, mystery, and suspense. Learn more about Kris and her books at her website where you'll find links to her other social media and also sign up for her newsletter to receive a free 10,000-word story set in the world of her Furrever Friends cat cafe, a printable copy of the recipes mentioned in the novels, and an Accidental Detective short story and bonus material. 

Who wouldn't want to be a billionaire? Turns out winning the lottery causes as many problems as it solves.

 

How did you get the idea for this series?

When browsing the top sellers in Kindle romance, I saw lots of billionaires and cowboys, and a few billionaire cowboys. I wondered, how might a cowboy (or rancher anyway) realistically become a billionaire? They’d hardly have enough free time to develop and promote an app that would become the next Tik-Tok and get a billion dollars. 

 

I came up with a family of four brothers and their mother. She plays the lottery, not expecting to win, but simply so she can spend an hour dreaming about being rich. And then she wins. Everything changes, and not necessarily for the better. Friends and family demand a share of the winnings. Strangers come up with scams and sob stories. 

 

People who win huge lotteries are advised to go into hiding, which you can’t really do when you have to take care of animals. This setup allows me to play with questions of dreams, choices, and responsibilities.

 

This is the first book in the Accidental Billionaire Cowboys series. The family tries to stick to some Christmas traditions in order to relieve stress – such as the annual cookie exchange. Here’s one of the sweet treats they make.

 

Rocky Road Fudge Bars

NOTE: Carefully read the entire recipe before starting this one; notice that frosting has to be ready when bars come out of oven. Makes 3 to 4 dozen bars.

 

Bar: 

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 square (1 oz.) unsweetened chocolate 

1 cup sugar 

1 cup flour 

1/2 - 1 cup chopped nuts 

1 teaspoon baking powder 

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs 

 

Filling:

6 oz. cream cheese, softened (one box, but reserve 2 oz. for frosting)

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1/4 c. butter or margarine, softened

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup chopped nuts

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips 

 

Frosting:

2 cups miniature marshmallows

1/4 cup butter or margarine

1 square (1 oz.) unsweetened chocolate

2 oz. reserved cream cheese

1/4 cup milk

3 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

 

Heat oven to 350°. Butter and flour 13 x 9-inch pan.

 

In large saucepan over low heat, melt 1/2 cup butter and 1 square chocolate. Add remaining bar ingredients and mix well. Spread in prepared pan. 

 

In small bowl, combine 6 ounces cream cheese with next five filling ingredients. Beat 1 minute at medium speed until smooth and fluffy; stir in nuts. 

 

Spread filling over bar mixture in pan. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake for 25 - 35 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 

 

While bars are baking, make frosting.

In large saucepan, over low heat, melt 1/4 cup butter, 1 square chocolate, remaining 2 ounces cream cheese, and milk. 

 

Stir in powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. 

 

Remove bars from oven and sprinkle with marshmallows. Bake 2 minutes longer.

 

Immediately pour frosting over marshmallows. Use a knife to swirl toppings together. 

 

Cool. Cut into bars. Store in refrigerator. 

 

The Billionaire Cowboy’s Christmas

The Accidental Billionaire Cowboys, Book 1

 

He has everything this Christmas, but all he wants is the quiet ranch life he’s losing…

 

When Josh Tomlinson’s Texas ranching family wins a fortune in the lottery, the formerly tight-knit family is suddenly on edge. Seeking advice, Josh reluctantly contacts family friend and now attorney, Carly Garza. His business is serious, yet he can’t believe Carly’s morphed from a long-legged colt of a girl to a sophisticated woman. Besides, he knows the intelligent Carly has no interest in a quiet, rugged cowboy like him.

 

Carly’s crushed on Josh for years, and she plans to ask him out now that she’s back in Last Stand. She’s hoping he’ll finally see her as someone other than his younger brother’s middle school girlfriend. But when Josh needs advice on how to handle his family’s lottery win, his client and billionaire statuses put him firmly out of reach. If only her heart could ignore the sparks that flare between them.

 

They’re already keeping the family’s lottery win a secret from the town. Can they also hide their budding romance during the most magical time of year?

 

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook 

#COOKING WITH CLORIS -- COZY MYSTERY AUTHOR ELLIE FIELDS AND CHOCOLATE DECADENCE CAKE

Author Ellie Fields weaves small town charm, baking recipes, and gardening tips into her cozy mysteries. Her diverse fictional town of Cricket Creek is an amalgam of the small towns up and down the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains where she lives and where she finds inspiration for her stories and characters. Learn more about her and her books at her website. 

Who Doesn't Love Chocolate?

 

Um…that would be me, actually. What??? Seriously????

 

Truthfully, it’s not that I don’t like chocolate, it’s that I’d rather enjoy something lemon-y or coconut-y, especially when it comes to cakes. But given that my friends, family, and hubby all love chocolate, that’s the flavor of cake I usually make for birthdays, and wow, do I have a fabulous chocolate cake recipe that everyone seems to love!

 

In Wedding Planned to Death, my amateur sleuth Cicely Rue is a gardener, not a baker. In fact, the only thing she likes baking are pies and pizza. She’d much rather have her hands deep in the rich soil of her garden than in a bowl of batter (although she did win the blue ribbon for her pies at the County Fair ten years running). In fact, she loves gardening so much that when she’s laid off from her job, she starts a business hosting weddings in her lovely flower garden.

 

Cicely's best friend Josie Barrett owns Creeky Sweets, a bakery in the small fictional town of Cricket Creek, California, and she bakes like a dream. She even bakes the cakes for the weddings Cicely hosts at her place. I love writing Josie’s character, because I can almost smell and taste all the goodies in the bakery as I write. Usually, when I’m done writing one of the scenes set in Creeky Sweets, I’m inspired to bake something, which my friends and hubby always appreciate! And each time I create some delicious confection, I save the recipe to use in one of my Wedding Garden Cozy Mystery books.

 

In Wedding Planned to Death, I shared one of the recipes from Josie’s bakery that included lavender from Cicely’s garden: Creeky Sweets Lavender and Lemon cookies. I also included a recipe for a pie Cicely Rue bakes in the story: Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie. Both are delicious, and I knew that for the next book in the series, Grave the Date, I needed to include other equally yummy recipes. I had several picked out from cakes, cookies, and breads I’ve baked before, but ended up not including my favorite chocolate cake recipe in the book. It’s too good not to share, though, so here it is.

 

First, though, answer me this: Do you love chocolate? Or are you like me, more of a fan of other flavors? And if so, what’s your favorite cake flavor?

 

Chocolate Decadence Cake

 

Ingredients:

3 cups (plus 2 tablespoons) all-purpose flour

3 cups granulated sugar

1-1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tablespoon baking soda

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

4 large eggs

1-1/2 cups buttermilk

1-1/4 cup warm water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup warm dark coffee

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Butter or Crisco to coat the cake tins

Three parchment paper circles to fit the bottom of 9-inch cake pans

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Using a paper towel, coat three nine inch cake pans with butter or Crisco, then sift flour into the pans and shake to make sure the butter is thoroughly coated. Tap out excess. Place parchment paper circles inside the cake pan. Set pans aside somewhere cool.

 

Using a wire whisk (or on low speed if you’re using a stand mixer), mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cream of tartar, and salt until thoroughly incorporated.

 

In a separate bowl, add the eggs, buttermilk, warm water, warm coffee, oil, and vanilla, then beat by hand with a wire whisk just until the eggs are broken up.

 

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, beating with a wire whisk for about five minutes or if using a stand mixer, about two to three minutes until the cake mixture is smooth and the wet and dry ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Be careful to not overmix.

 

Using a tare scale or another method, divide the batter equally among the three pans. 

 

Bake for 30-35 minutes. Check for doneness by sticking a toothpick in the middle. If the toothpick comes out clean, your cake is done. If it’s sticky, bake for another two minutes, then test again, using a fresh toothpick. Be careful to test quickly, as you don’t want all the heat to escape your oven.

 

Cool in the pans on wire racks. I typically cool ten to twenty minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cake. Put a wire rack on top of the cake, grab it carefully, then flip it over and hopefully the cake will slide right out of the pan. If you’re using parchment paper, be sure to peel the paper off at this point. Allow to cool completely (at least another hour). 

 

Layer the cake, adding a ring of Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttermilk on the bottom layer and filling it in with chocolate ganache. Repeat for the next layer. Add the top layer, then crumb-coat the cake with a thin layer of the Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting. Set in the refrigerator for an hour. When the frosting is solid, remove cake from refrigerator and coat with a generous layer of the frosting, then serve and enjoy!

  

Chocolate Ganache

 

Ingredients:

8 ounces heavy cream

16 ounces semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate (room-temperature)

 

Grate the chocolate and place it in a dry medium-sized bowl. Set it aside.  Grating the chocolate results in an easier melt. (Note: be sure all utensils are dry.)

 

In a heavy saucepan, heat cream over medium heat until little bubbles begin to form along the edges. Do NOT boil! I never leave my saucepan at this step.

 

Pour the cream into a dry medium-sized bowl. Carefully add the chocolate to the cream, stirring until just incorporated. Let it sit for five minutes, unbothered.

 

Once the mixture has set for five minutes, with a dry wooden spoon, stir the chocolate and cream together until the chocolate is fully incorporated into the cream.

 

Cool completely, then whip for five minutes on high in a stand mixer.

 

Put in a piping bag to use as the filling in the cake. 

 

Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttermilk Frosting

 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

8 ounces full-fat cream cheese, softened

1-1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 tablespoon cold dark coffee

7-8 cups sifted powdered sugar

1/4 cup (or less) milk

 

Using a hand or stand mixer, beat butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. 

 

Slowly incorporate the cocoa powder, then add the vanilla and cold coffee and beat until thoroughly incorporated.

 

Add the sifted powdered sugar, one cup at a time. If the mixture gets too thick, add milk, one tablespoon at a time until it gets to a good spreading consistency (this is a thick frosting so be sure not to add too much milk). 

 

Wedding Planned to Death

A Wedding Garden Cozy Mystery, Book 1

 

When introverted gardener Cicely Rue loses her job and learns she and her son (along with her dog, cat, and all her chickens) may have to move away from Cricket Creek, wedding planner Sabrina Mattingly—the town’s former bully—tosses her a lifeline by offering a contract to host a wedding in Cicely’s picturesque flower garden.

 

Cicely’s at first reluctant (host weddings? with people?), but given the choice between losing her home or becoming more sociable, she soon agrees to turn her garden into a wedding venue. Even as Cicely grows increasingly nervous, the town vendors excitedly prepare for the wedding. The wedding plans are coming along beautifully . . . until the wedding planner turns up dead and buried in Cicely's compost heap!

 

Milo Levine may be a brilliant detective, but he’s dead wrong when he makes Cicely his prime suspect just because her fingerprints are all over the murder weapon. Doesn’t seem to matter that Milo had once been her friend, nor does it matter that Cicely has a blooming suspicion others in town have motive for murder.

 

Despite Milo ordering her to steer clear of the investigation, Cicely and her dog Otis dig for clues rooted deep in the town’s history to prove she’s not a murderer—and to find out who is before Cicely becomes the murderer's next victim!

 

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook 

ON CARROT CAKE #RECIPES AND HEADSTONES

By Lois Winston

 

Authors find inspiration everywhere, sometimes in the strangest of places. On a trip to northern California a few months ago, I found myself walking through a quaint Victorian town one gloomy afternoon. After a rainy morning, my sister-in-law suggested it as a good place to stretch our legs.

The town didn’t disappoint. I particularly enjoyed strolling around some of the antique shops and an old-fashioned general store. However, the pièce de resistance was that hillside cemetery. Cemeteries, especially old ones, fascinate me. Several years ago, I spent hours wandering around one in Key West.

I know many people purchase their cemetery plots in advance, and some even have their headstones carved, minus their death date, which gets added after their demise. I suppose it makes life easier for those they leave behind. Sometimes people include quotes, often from the Bible or a favorite poem. Some headstones are inscribed with tongue-in-cheek sayings. However, this cemetery was the first I’ve ever come across that contained a grave with a complete recipe etched into the stone!

And it apparently isn’t even a fabulous, prize-winning recipe. According to the title, it’s only A Good Carrot Cake recipe. A look at the front of the tombstone and its companion, shows that it’s obvious this couple has quite a sense of humor. It makes me wonder about the backstory of the carrot cake recipe. 

I suppose I could have looked up the couple and asked. According to the markers, they’re both still alive, but I lacked the courage. It’s possible everyone in town knows the story behind the gravestone recipe, but I didn’t ask anyone. Instead, I took some photos and filed this bit of trivia away for future reference. Someday it just might show up in one of my books. I’ve already warned Anastasia.

#COOKING WITH CLORIS--COZY MYSTERY AUTHOR JENNIFER HAWKINS ON THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN BAKING AND WRITING, PLUS A SHORTBREAD #RECIPE

Jennifer Hawkins is the author of the Chatty Corgi mysteries, as well as an avid amateur baker who probably spends way too much time watching The Great British Baking Show. She lives, works and bakes in southeast Michigan with her husband and son. Jennifer doesn’t have a website, but you can connect with her and learn more about her and her books on Facebook and find links to her other social media. 

Bake, Write, Repeat

For me, baking and writing have always been linked. Both were something I discovered as a young person.Both were a way for me to stretch and discover, even when I felt marooned in the suburbs. Both have been something I’ve returned to repeatedly when I need solace, or quality time with, well, me. 

 

And, if you think about it, there’s a certain similarity between the two.

 

Both are creative, both are unpredictable, both require patience and an understanding that occasionally it just won’t turn out. 

 

For instance, with both, the initial idea is the easy part. Saying “I’m going to bake a batch of shortbread,” is as simple as “I’m going to write about Emma Reed, who moves to Cornwall with her talking corgi to open a tea shop, but there’s a murder.”

 

Okay, maybe it’s not that simple. After all, baking shortbread generally takes an hour or two. Writing a novel takes a little longer. But you get what I mean. The idea is simple, the actual execution? That’s harder. 

 

Although, when it comes to the perfect shortbread, it’s not actually that much harder.

 

Like a novel, shortbread requires just a few quality ingredients — good butter, flour, sugar, salt and maybe a dash of zest. Zest is required for the novel too, along with character, plot, and setting. Both require patience, and with both, you need to know how not to overwork the dough. 

 

For a delicious and perfectly simple shortbread, this is what you need:

 

Ingredients:

2 cups/250 grams all-purpose flour

2/3 cup/150 grams granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt (I use kosher)

2 sticks/1 cup/226 grams cold unsalted butter

1 tsp. lemon or orange zest (optional)

 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

Cut up the butter into small cubes, and put it back in the fridge while you get the rest of your ingredients together. As with biscuits and pie crust, shortbread works best when the butter’s really cold.

 

Combine flour, sugar, salt in a food processor, pulse a few times to mix. Add cubed butter and pulse in 10 second bursts until the mixture is sandy and it holds together when you squeeze a lump in your hand. It’s going to look dryer than the usual cookie dough, but that’s okay. It’s supposed to.

 

Turn mixture into an 8” x 8” baking pan or shortbread pan and press down with your fingers into a smooth, solid layer of dough. Use a fork to prick the surface of the dough all over. This is called “docking” and it will release the steam from the inside and keep the dough from puffing up.

 

Bake at 325 F for 45 - 50 minutes. Now is a good time to read the next few chapters.

 

Let cool for 10 minutes before turning the shortbread out of the pan. While the shortbread is still warm, cut into preferred shape. 

 

A Cold Nose for Murder

A Chatty Corgi Mystery, Book 3

 

When Emma Reed moved to the Cornish village of Trevena, she was looking forward to making new friends, opening up a small tea shop, and taking plenty of brisk walks with her talking dog, Oliver. But when a valuable motorcycle and an old skeleton are found together under the local pub, Emma's antique dealing friends David and Charles become prime suspects in a forty-year-old mystery. The local gossip is soon flowing faster than tea in Emma's shop, and old secrets are being unearthed right along with the old bones.

 

Although David and Charles insist they have nothing to do with the skeleton, they quickly come under police suspicion. To save their friends, Emma and Oliver will need to dig deep....

 

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook 

audiobook