by Maymee Bell
Instructions
1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. Bring 1 cup water to a boil in a saucepan.
3. Add the butter to the water and stir until it is melted.
4. Add the flour and salt all at once to the water mix.
5. Stir until a ball is formed.
6. Remove from the heat and add one egg. Beat. Let stand for 5 minutes.
7. Add the remaining eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.
8. Let stand for 10 minutes.
9. Drop a heaping tablespoon of dough onto a cookie sheet with a spoon, or use a pastry bag or ziplock bag to pipe the dough onto the cookie sheet. Make sure the puffs are about 2 inches apart, because they will expand.
10. Bake for 20–30 minutes. Check them around 20 minutes. Don’t burn them.
Filling Notes
There are so many possibilities for delicious fillings. Vanilla cream, custard, coconut cream, lemon cream, chocolate cream, and strawberry cream are just a few.
Southern Skillet Apple Pie
Ingredients
2 pounds Granny Smith apples
2 pounds Braeburn apples
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
½ cup butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 packages refrigerated pie crusts
1 egg white
Directions
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Peel all your apples and cut into ½-inch wedges. Add the cinnamon and ¾ cup granulated sugar together in a bowl and toss your apple wedges around in it.
3. I use a 10-inch round cast-iron skillet, but you can use a square one. Melt your butter in the skillet over medium heat. Add in the brown sugar and stir constantly. Remove it from the heat. Put one of the pie crusts in the skillet over the mixture.
4. Pour your apple mixture into the skillet over the crust.
5. Put the other crust over the skillet (pie mixture) and pinch the edges over the edge of the skillet to seal the pie.
6. In a bowl, mix the egg white until foamy and brush over the top pie crust. Sprinkle the 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar over the crust. Cut four slits (like an X) in the middle of the crust. This helps the steam to escape from the pie and make the apples tender.
7. Put the skillet in the oven and bake for an hour and ten minutes or until the crust is golden brown. If you’ve baked for the full time and it’s not completely finished, place some foil loosely over the top so it won’t burn.
8. Cool for about thirty minutes.
9. You can top it with ice cream!
10. Enjoy!
Banana Pudding Cupcakes
Ingredients
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup sour cream
1 egg, room temperature
2 egg yolks, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
⅓ cup vanilla wafer crumbs
1 large container frozen whipped topping, thawed
12 whole vanilla wafers
Pudding Filling
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
¾ cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (3.4-ounce) box instant vanilla pudding mix
1 ripe banana, cut into thin slices and then diced
Instructions
1. Heat your oven to 350 degrees with your oven rack in the middle of the oven. Line a twelve-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
2. Place the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl, and use a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment to mix them together.
3. With the mixer on medium speed, add butter, sour cream, egg, egg yolks, and vanilla. Beat for 30 seconds or until the mixture is smooth and satiny.
4. Remove the mixing bowl from the mixer and, using a rubber spatula, scrape down the sides of the bowl. Make sure the batter is mixed evenly.
5. Divide the batter equally among the muffin cups and bake for 18 to 22 minutes. Let them cool before proceeding.
6. Using a spoon or your fingers, create a hollowed-out portion in each cupcake, as you would to make a bread bowl, being careful to leave a layer of cupcake all the way across the bottom.
7. Sprinkle some vanilla wafer crumbs at the bottom of each cupcake “bowl.”
8. Using an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk for 2–3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl at least once.
9. Add the milk, vanilla extract, and pudding mix and beat until they are mixed together well. Stir in the bananas by hand. Immediately spoon the pudding mixture into the cupcake holes, leaving enough extra that you can create a layer of pudding spread across the top of the cupcake.
10. Use an offset spatula or a pastry bag fitted with a large tip to add whipped topping on top of the pudding mixture. Garnish with a whole vanilla wafer and more crumbs if desired.
Kentucky Butter Cupcakes
Ingredients
1 cup salted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt (optional; I don’t add any since I use salted butter)
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk (or regular milk)
Glaze
⅓ cup salted butter
¾ cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla
powdered sugar for dusting (optional)
Instructions
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin tins.
2. Combine all of the cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, then increase the speed and mix for 2–3 minutes.
3. Pour the batter into muffin tins, filling them three-quarters of the way full.
4. Bake 17–19 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in one comes out clean. The tops will be golden brown. Let the cupcakes set in the muffin tins while you prepare the glaze.
5. Prepare the glaze by heating the ingredients on the stovetop in a saucepan over medium heat until the butter is melted.
6. Move the cupcakes to a cooling rack or baking sheet and pour warm glaze over the tops, about a spoonful on each. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.
Kentucky Derby Pie
(from the recipe book of Maymee Bell’s own mama, Linda Lowry)
My mama’s Derby pie is smack-your-mama good! It’s a southern pie with walnuts and chocolate chips. You can use pecans as a substitute for the walnuts, but I really like my walnuts!
Ingredients
½ cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
½ cup flour
2 beaten eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup walnuts or pecans (your choice—not both!)
¾ cup chocolate chips (or more if you really want it gooey!)
Directions
1. Mix the ingredients in the order listed. This is very important.
2. Pour the mixture into an unbaked 9-inch pie shell.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Also available by Maymee Bell
Works written by Tonya Kappes
Kenni Lowry Mysteries
&nb
sp; Ax to Grind
Southern Fried
Fixin’ to Die
Killer Coffee Mysteries
Freshly Ground Murder
Mocha and Murder
Scene of the Grind
Ghostly Southern Mysteries
A Ghostly Secret
A Ghostly Mortality
A Ghostly Reunion
A Ghostly Murder
A Ghostly Demise
A Ghostly Grave
A Ghostly Undertaking
Magical Cures Mysteries
A Charming Voodoo
A Charming Hex
A Charming Ghost
A Charming Fatality
A Charming Secret
A Charming Magic
A Charming Spell
A Charming Wish
A Charming Potion
A Charming Cure
A Charming Crime
Author Biography
Maymee Bell lives in Kentucky with her family and her two schnauzers. She likes strong coffee, slow-country days, and fresh-baked cookies—but she likes telling stories best of all. This is her first Southern Baker mystery.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reaction to the recipes contained in this book.
Copyright © 2018 by The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-571-1
ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-572-8
ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-573-5
Cover illustration by Matthew Kalamidas/StoneHouse Creative, Inc.
Book design by Jennifer Canzone
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First Edition: May 2018
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