by Joanne Fluke
The waitress must have been listening, because the dessert cart appeared immediately. There were Hannah’s Blonde Brownies to celebrate the fact that Willa’s killer was behind bars, and a round silver platter that was totally empty.
“Here, Hannah,” Norman said, passing a second photograph to her.
Hannah glanced down at the photo, and a broad smile spread across her face. “It’s perfect, Norman. How did you do that?”
“With my photo program. That’s the beauty of digital photography. I could have changed your dress to any color, but I thought dark green looked better with your hair.”
“It does look better,” Hannah uttered the understatement of the year and gave silent thanks to whoever had designed Norman’s photo program. “Is this the picture that’s going to be in the paper tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Norman,” Hannah said, already thinking of other ways she could show her appreciation. And then the waitress approached her, and Hannah noticed that empty silver plate again.
“Why do you have…?” Hannah started to ask, but she stopped as she saw Ruby walking up to their table with a plate liner to fit that silver platter. The glass liner contained at least a dozen deep-fried goodies.
“Milky Ways are on the left, and Snickers are on the right,” Ruby said, placing the liner on the silver platter and smiling at Hannah. “Your mother arranged it, and Sally let me make them right here.”
Ruby left the platter and came around the table to give Hannah a big hug. “Thank you for saving Brianna from making the biggest mistake of her life!”
Hannah hugged her back and accepted the deep-fried Milky Way that Ruby put on her plate. As she took her first bite and came very close to moaning in pleasure, she thought about how lucky she was. It was wonderful to be here with her family and friends, enjoying a once-in-a-life-time treat. And then she caught her mother’s eye. And she wondered exactly what project her mother had finished. And whether that secret project was going to affect all of their lives.
BLONDE BROWNIES
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
4 one-ounce squares white chocolate (or the equivalent— ¾ cup white chocolate chips will do fine)
¾ cup butter (one-and-a-half sticks)
1½ cups white (granulated) sugar
3 beaten eggs (just whip them up in a glass with a fork)
1 teaspoon coconut extract (or vanilla)
1 cup flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it)
½ cup pecans
½ cup coconut
½ cup white chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli)
Prepare a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan by lining it with a piece of foil large enough to flap over the sides. Spray the foil-lined pan with Pam or other nonstick cooking spray.
Microwave the white chocolate and butter in a microwave-safe mixing bowl for one minute. Stir. (Since chocolate frequently maintains its shape even when melted, you have to stir to make sure.) If it’s not melted, microwave for an additional 20 seconds and stir again. Repeat if necessary.
Stir the sugar into the white chocolate mixture. Feel the bowl. If it’s not so hot it’ll cook the eggs, add them now, stirring thoroughly. Mix in the coconut extract.
Mix in the flour and stir just until it’s moistened.
Put the pecans, coconut and white chocolate chips in a food processor. Chop them all together with the steel blade. (If you don’t have a food processor, you don’t have to buy one just for this recipe—just chop everything up as well as you can with a sharp knife.)
Mix in the chopped ingredients, give a final stir, and spread the batter out in your prepared pan.
Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 minutes.
Cool the Blonde Brownies in the pan on a metal rack. When they’re thoroughly cool, grasp the edges of the foil and lift the brownies out of the pan. Put them facedown on a cutting board, peel the foil off the back, and cut them into brownie-sized pieces.
Place the squares on a plate and dust lightly with powdered sugar.
Jo Fluke’s Note: I developed these Blonde Brownies for Laura Levine’s party when she launched the third book in her Jaine Austen mystery series, Killer Blonde.
RUBY’S DEEP-FRIED CANDY BARS
Oil for deep-frying (I used canola)
6 or more assorted chocolate-covered candy bars***
Buy the candy bars the day before you intend to make these and chill them in their wrappers in your refrigerator overnight.
An hour and a half before you want to serve, mix up the batter from the following ingredients:
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour (not sifted)
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
2 Tablespoons white (granulated) sugar
1 egg
1 cup whole milk
Combine the flour, salt, baking soda, cream of tartar, and sugar in a medium-sized bowl. Mix it all up together.
In a separate small bowl (I used a 2-cup measuring cup) whisk the egg with the milk until it’s nice and smooth.
Dump the milk and egg mixture into the bowl with the flour mixture and stir until there are no lumps. (The resulting batter is about twice as thick as pancake batter.)
Cover your bowl and chill it in the refrigerator for at least an hour. (Two hours is okay, but no longer than that.)
Hannah’s 1st Note: You can use a heavy pan on the stove to deep-fry these sinful treats as long as you have a reliable deep-frying thermometer. If you do this, you’ll have to keep a sharp eye on the temperature of the oil. It should remain at a fairly constant 375 degrees F. A deep fryer that regulates its own temperature is really preferable, but you don’t have to run right out and buy one just to try this recipe. If you use a deep fryer, DO NOT use the basket. The battered candy bars will stick to it and you’ll never get them loose.
Prepare for deep-frying by heating your oil to 375 degrees F.
Prepare a cooling and draining surface by setting a metal rack over a pan lined with paper towels.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: You will fry these candy bars one at a time and serve them the same way. That’s to keep them from sticking together in the hot oil. You’ll probably find that eager dessert eaters will line up in the kitchen to receive their treats.
Take out a candy bar, unwrap it, and dip it in the chilled batter. Make sure it’s completely covered by the batter. Slide it gently into the hot oil with your batter-covered fingers (or with two forks) and fry it for approximately two and a half minutes, or until nicely browned. Use a slotted metal spoon, or a pair of tongs to remove the candy bar from the hot oil.
Set the candy bar on the rack to drain and leave it there for at least a minute to cool. Then transfer it to a dessert dish or plate and serve.
When all the candy bars have been fried and eaten, you may have batter left over. If you do, dump it into a plastic bag, cut off the end, and squeeze it into the hot oil in a circular pattern. If you haven’t guessed by this time, you’re making funnel cake. Once the funnel cake is nicely browned, remove it from the oil, set it on the rack to drain, and then sprinkle it with powdered sugar. Yum!
WARNING: NEVER LEAVE HOT OIL OR FAT UNATTENDED!!!
Index of Recipes
Swedish Oatmeal Cookies
Pineapple Delights
Walnut-Date Chews
Key Lime Pie
Mock Apple Pie
Bernadette’s Popovers
Fancy Butters for Popovers
Breakfast Omelet
Cappuccino Royales
Mango Bread
Peach Bread
Spicy Dreams
Kitty’s Orange Cake
Chippers
Blonde Brownies
Ruby’s Deep-Fried Candy Bars
Baking Conversion Chart
These conversions are approximate, but they’ll work just fine for Hannah Swensen’s recipes.
VOLUME:
OVEN
TEMPERATURE:
Note: Hannah’s rectangular sheet cake pan, 9 inches by 13 inches, is approximately 23 centimeters by 32.5 centimeters.
Summertime has finally arrived in Lake Eden, Minnesota, and Hannah Swensen, owner of The Cookie Jar bakery, is looking forward to warm, lazy days, eating ice cream, and sharing picnics with friends. But when a family reunion takes a deadly turn, it’s up to Hannah to find a killer…
Between baking up a storm for The Cookie Jar and unraveling the mystery of her cat Moishe’s recent strange behavior, Hannah Swensen has a lot on her plate. But she’ll always make time for her business partner, Lisa, who’s in the midst of preparing for a big family reunion. Everyone is delighted when Lisa’s long-lost uncle makes a surprise appearance. No one has heard from Gus in twenty-five years—and his arrival has everyone buzzing with excitement.
Uncle Gus is immediately the hit of the reunion, telling tales of his great success and flashing money for all to see. He’s almost as popular as Hannah’s scrumptious carrot cake, which is also Gus’s favorite dessert. But the next morning, as the whole family gathers for the group photo, one person is missing. Hannah offers to track down Uncle Gus, but her search leads to a shocking find. Over by the bar at the pavilion, she spots two slices of her infamous carrot cake, frosting-side down on the floor—and Gus’s corpse with an ice pick jutting out of his chest!
A little snooping reveals that not everyone was celebrating Gus’s return. And when Hannah unearths more secrets from Gus’s past, she discovers even more people with an axe to grind. Now Hannah’s got to sift through a long list of suspects to find a killer—even if it could mean a recipe for her own demise…
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of CARROT CAKE MURDER coming in March 2008!
Hannah lowered the driver’s window of her cookie truck to enjoy the gentle breeze wafting off the far shore of Eden Lake. Even though the gravel road around the lake was showing wear from the tourists who’d towed heavy boat trailers and campers, she took the ruts at a fast clip to outrun the mosquitoes. She’d been through enough Minnesota summers to know that if she slowed to a crawl, they would descend on her arm in hungry hordes to gorge on a luncheon of A-negative with an anti-B antibody.
It was a perfectly lovely day. The air was scented with a wisp of smoke from a fisherman’s shore lunch campfire and a dampness that reminded her of wet swim suits tossed over a porch rail to dry. The sun was almost straight overhead. When it reached its apex, the shadows of the tall pines that lined the lakeshore would be at their smallest: merely a darker circle on the ground around the tree trunk, no larger than the branches that served as its pattern. It was the final Monday in August, and Hannah was playing hooky—with her mother’s blessing, something that had never happened during her school days at Jordan High. But today Delores and Carrie were also playing hooky. They’d closed their antique shop to attend the Beeseman-Herman Family Reunion, and sent their assistant, Luanne Hanks, next door to Hannah’s cookie-and-coffee shop. She’d arrived to take charge just as Hannah was about to turn the CLOSED sign on the front door to OPEN, and now Hannah was free to enjoy this lazy, end-of-summer day.
Since she was in no hurry, Hannah took the long way around the lake. Attending Lisa and Herb’s family reunion would be fun as long as she didn’t get buttonholed by Uncle Gus again. She’d spent quite enough time with him at the dance last night, wedged into a round wooden booth at the Lake Pavilion with Marge Beeseman on one side and Uncle Gus on the other. Hannah had seriously been considering sliding under the table and crawling out when they weren’t looking; but finally Gus had asked Marge to dance, and she was free to make her escape.
Gus Kaun, Marge’s brother, was back in town after a twenty-five-year absence. To hear him tell about it, he’d gone off to make his fortune and was now a rich, successful businessman. Perhaps everything he’d told Hannah and Marge last night was true, but Hannah didn’t like the way he bragged about everything he’d done and belittled everyone who’d stayed behind in Lake Eden. She especially didn’t like the way he behaved toward Jack Herman, Lisa’s father. There appeared to be bad blood between them, but neither man would talk about it, and no one knew what had caused the rift between the friends who had been inseparable in high school.
Hannah let out a groan as she came around a curve and saw that the public parking lot was full. In addition to the relatives who were staying at nearby lake cottages, it appeared that everyone in town had driven out for the day’s festivities. It wasn’t surprising, considering the size of both families. Lisa was the youngest daughter in the large Herman family. Most of the children had stayed in the area and married into other big families. The same was true for the Beesemans. At last count, over one hundred people had responded to the reunion invitation.
Since there weren’t any vacant parking spots, Hannah created one of her own. That was the beauty of owning a four-wheel-drive cookie truck. When the proper gear was engaged, her Suburban climbed up the three-foot berm surrounding the parking lot and found a semilevel spot on top.
Hannah took the time to spray on mosquito repellent, a precaution she’d learned early in life. Then she retrieved the large box of cookies she’d packed to add to the lunch table. Kids loved cookies, and there were plenty of kids at the family reunion. She held the box with both hands, dug in her heels to walk down the berm, and then hurried toward the picnic tables, where a crowd was gathering by the shore.
Loud, merry voices floated up to greet her, and Hannah spied Lisa standing on top of a picnic table, holding a cheerleading megaphone to her lips. She was wearing a red T-shirt with the legend FAMILY IS EVERYTHING.
“It’s time for the family portrait,” Lisa called out. “We’re going to have the lake in the background, so line up at the edge of the water behind the two chairs for your host and hostess. That’s my dad, Jack Herman, and Herb’s mom, Marge Beeseman. Norman and Herb will tell you what row you’re in if you can’t figure it out for yourself. We want the tallest in the back and the shortest in the front.”
Hannah set the cookies down on the food table and headed for the shore to watch. She knew that Norman had offered to take the group pictures, and perhaps she could help.
“Hannah!”
Hannah knew that voice and thankfully it wasn’t Uncle Gus. “Hi, Mother,” she said, turning to greet the fashionable, dark-haired woman who would die rather than exceed the petite dress size she’d worn in high school.
“Hello, dear.” Delores steadied herself against her eldest daughter’s arm and shook the sand from one white high-heeled sandal. “I wish I hadn’t worn these today, but I didn’t think the beach would be quite this sandy.”
Hannah laughed. “It’s a beach, Mother. By definition it’s sandy.”
“You’re right, of course. But I didn’t think it would be this sandy.” Delores paused for a moment and then she gave Hannah a smile. “Did you like the surprise we sent you this morning?”
For a brief moment Hannah was puzzled, but then she got it. “You mean Luanne. That was really thoughtful of you, Mother. I didn’t think I’d be able to drive out here until we closed.”
“Anything for my dearest daughter.”
Uh-oh! Warning bells sounded in Hannah’s head. Her mother wanted something…but what?
“I hope you can relax and have a good time today. You deserve a little break, Hannah.”
The warning bells turned into klaxons, and yellow caution lights began to blink on and off. “Thanks, Mother,” Hannah responded. And then, just because she couldn’t resist, she asked, “What do you want?”
Her mother reared back in surprise that could have been real or not, Hannah couldn’t tell. “Want? What makes you think I want anything? Just because I called you my dearest daughter and I said you deserved to relax and have a good time doesn’t mean I want anything.”
“I’m sorry,” Hannah said, backpedaling as fast as she could. “I thought there was something you wanted me to do for you.”
&nbs
p; “Well…now that you mention it…” Delores gave an elaborate shrug. “You could find Marge’s brother for me. No one’s seen him since the dance last night. When he didn’t show up for the family picture, they sent me to find him. But my shoes…” She glanced down at the stylish sandals. “They’re just not suitable for trying to locate someone. You know what I mean, don’t you, dear?”