Red Velvet Cupcake Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  1 teaspoon baking powder

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  1 teaspoon cocoa powder

  2 teaspoons red food color gel (if you can’t find gel,

  you can use liquid food coloring, but gel is best—

  I used Betty Crocker Classic Gel Food Colors)

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  2 large eggs

  2 and ½ cups all-purpose flour (pack it down in the

  cup when you measure it)

  1 cup buttermilk

  1 teaspoon red wine vinegar (or white vinegar if you

  can’t find red wine vinegar)

  Line 24 cupcake cups with cupcake papers. (My cupcake pans hold 12 apiece so I used 2 cupcake pans. I also used double cupcake papers in each cup.)

  WARNING ABOUT FOOD COLOR GEL: Make sure you don’t buy red decorating gel instead of red food color gel. The decorating gel comes in individual tubes and is used to write on the top of cakes in various colors of gel frosting. You need to buy the concentrated food color gel that will color your cupcake batter red. If you can’t find food color gel, you can use liquid food coloring, but you’ll have to use double the amount.

  Place the white sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the softened, salted butter and vegetable oil. Beat until the resulting mixture is nice and fluffy.

  Mix in the salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cocoa powder. Mix it in thoroughly.

  Add the 2 teaspoons of red food color gel and the vanilla extract. Beat until the color is mixed in evenly.

  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

  Add one cup of flour to your bowl and mix it in thoroughly. Then shut off the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

  Pour in a half-cup of buttermilk and mix that in thoroughly on LOW speed.

  Add a second cup of flour to your bowl. Mix it in thoroughly and then shut off the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl again.

  Add the rest of the buttermilk (½ cup) to your bowl. Mix well.

  Mix in the rest of the flour (½ cup) and mix thoroughly.

  Mix in the red wine vinegar.

  Shut off the mixer, remove the bowl, and give your cupcake batter a final scrape and stir with the rubber spatula.

  The vinegar may make your batter foam up a bit. That’s perfectly all right.

  Fill the cupcake papers full of batter. (Lisa and I used a 2-Tablespoon scoop to do this at The Cookie Jar.)

  Take the Chocolate Apricot Surprises you made out of the refrigerator. Peel them off the waxed paper one by one, and put them in the center of each cupcake. Push them down slightly, but be careful not to push them all the way to the bottom of the cupcakes!

  Fill the cupcake papers with batter until they’re ¾ full. These cupcakes don’t rise very much so you don’t have to worry about them overflowing.

  Bake the Red Velvet Surprise Cupcakes in a preheated 350 degrees F. oven for 20 to 23 minutes. (Mine took 21 minutes.)

  Take the cupcake pans out of the oven and let them cool completely on a cold stove burner or a wire rack. Do not remove the cupcakes from the pan until they are completely cool.

  Yield: 24 cupcakes

  CREAM CHEESE FROSTING FOR RED VELVET SURPRISE CUPCAKES

  4 ounces cream cheese (I used Philadelphia Brand

  in the rectangular silver package—half a package

  was 4 ounces)

  ¼ cup salted butter (½ stick, 2 ounces, pound)

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  2 cups powdered sugar (pack it down in the cup

  when you measure it)

  Place the cream cheese and the butter in a medium-size microwave-safe bowl. (I used a quart measuring cup.) Microwave on HIGH for 30 seconds. Stir. If you can stir the cream cheese and the butter smooth, take the bowl out and put it on the counter. If it’s still not soft enough to stir, microwave on HIGH in 20-second intervals until it is.

  Add the vanilla extract to your bowl and stir that in.

  Add the powdered sugar, a half-cup at a time, stirring after each addition. Continue to add powdered sugar until the frosting is spreadable, not runny.

  Work from the center out when you frost your Red Velvet Surprise Cupcakes. Don’t go all the way to the edges. Leave a little of the red cupcake showing all the way around.

  Yield: This recipe will frost 24 cupcakes. (If there’s any frosting left over, spread it on graham crackers or soda crackers for the kids.)

  When Lisa and I baked these for the grand opening of the Albion Hotel, we sprinkled the top of the Cream Cheese Frosting with red decorating sugar.

  Chapter Three

  When Hannah and Andrea got back to the Red Velvet Lounge, they found that their mother and Doc Knight had staked out the largest table in the center of the room. “Nice job, Mother,” Hannah said, taking a chair. “You got here early.”

  “So did you. And I must say, Hannah, you look very pretty tonight.”

  “Thanks, Mother.”

  “Is that lipstick?”

  “Yes.”

  “And eye makeup.”

  “Yes, but it’s not my fault. Andrea made me do it.”

  Doc Knight chuckled as he turned to Hannah. “You sound like a kid who’s caught with her hand in the cookie jar.”

  “You’re right. She does,” Andrea agreed. “But that never could have happened at our house. Mother’s cookie jar was always empty unless Hannah came home from school and baked.”

  Doc laughed again, longer this time. Then he put his hand on Delores’s arm. “Lori can burn water, that’s for sure. She made me some coffee this morning and I swear it tasted burned.”

  “Doc!” Delores turned and gave him what Hannah and her sisters had always called Mother’s glare of imminent death.

  “Okay. Maybe I shouldn’t have told them that,” Doc said by way of apology, but Hannah noticed that his eyes were sparkling with laughter. “Am I forgiven? Or do I have to jump through hoops?”

  “You have to jump through hoops,” Delores said and then she did something that surprised both Hannah and Andrea. She laughed. “I’ll expect you to make the coffee tomorrow and that’s a win-win situation for me. I never get a good cup of coffee when I make it.”

  “Deal,” Doc said, slipping his arm around her shoulders and giving her a hug. “By the way, I agree that Hannah looks lovely tonight, but she always looks good, even without any makeup.”

  Delores nodded. “You’re right. Hannah’s beautiful, no matter what. I really shouldn’t . . .” She stopped and looked thoughtful. “What is that word you use for what I just did?”

  “Harangue? Plague? Bully? Criticize?” Doc gave her another little hug to let her know he was teasing. “It’s okay, Lori. The girls wouldn’t know what to do with you if you didn’t criticize them. You’ve done it all their lives and if you changed now, it just wouldn’t be you. They know you love them and want the best for them.” Doc turned to Hannah and Andrea. “You do, don’t you?”

  “Of course we know.” Hannah was the first to respond.

  Andrea reached over to give her mother a pat on the hand. “Hannah’s right. We grew up knowing that.”

  Delores looked slightly tearful and Hannah began to think that leopards really could change their spots overnight. Their mother had just admitted that she was too critical and that had never happened before. There was a moment of silence that was beginning to become just a bit uncomfortable when Doc spoke again.

  “We planned to get here earlier, but I wanted to stay at the hospital until Warren Dalworth’s visitor left.”

  “It was someone from Minneapolis with some papers for him to sign,” Delores told them. “That didn’t take long, but then Roger came in and Doc needed time to talk to him.”

  “How is Warren doing?” Hannah asked, hoping that there was some good news.

  Doc shook his head and sighed. “Not well. He’s comfortable, but he knows he’s terminal and he can’t last much longer. The hardest part was telling
Roger.”

  Hannah shivered slightly. Roger was an only child and his mother had died several years ago. He’d just gotten over one loss in his immediate family and now, today, he’d learned that his father didn’t have long to live. “It must be horrible to get news like that,” she said.

  “It is,” Doc told her. “And delivering that news is almost as difficult as getting it. It’s one of the hardest parts of being a doctor.”

  “Is Roger all right?” Andrea asked.

  “Yes. He took it well. Of course it wasn’t totally unexpected. Warren’s been battling cancer for the past four years. There’s also the fact that Roger and his father have never been that close, but it’s still hard to hear that a parent is dying.”

  Andrea and Hannah exchanged glances. Hannah didn’t want to think about that, and she could tell that Andrea didn’t either.

  “Did Roger go to see his father?” Andrea asked.

  “Yes.” This time Delores answered. “And he told us he’d be staying in Lake Eden indefinitely so that he could see his father every day.”

  This time there was a three-way glance between mother and daughters, and Doc gave a little nod. “I caught that. You’re doing that mother-daughter telepathy thing again. All three of you are worried that if Roger stays in Lake Eden, Doctor Bev will stay, too.”

  “That’s right,” Delores said, giving him a fond look. And then, in her best British upper-class accent she exclaimed, “By George! I think he’s got it!”

  The tension that had settled over them with Doc’s news dissolved as all four of them laughed. They were still smiling when Barbara Donnelly walked up to their table.

  “Hi, everyone,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “You’re not late,” Delores told her. “We didn’t get here until five minutes ago. Sit down and have some appetizers. They look lovely.”

  Barbara glanced at the appetizer tray that sat in the center of the table. “Did you do these, Hannah?”

  “No. We only catered the cupcakes. Roger hired a catering company from Minneapolis to do the rest of the food.”

  “Sit here, Barbara.” Andrea pulled out the chair for her husband’s secretary. “But first turn around so that I can see your skirt. It’s just beautiful.”

  “It’s more than beautiful, it’s gorgeous,” Delores corrected her as Barbara turned all the way around. “You look lovely, Barbara.”

  “Thank you.” Barbara smiled as she sat down. “Claire ordered this outfit especially for me. She remembered that I just love monarch butterflies.”

  “The colors are incredible against the black background,” Hannah said, admiring the dozens of embroidered monarch butterflies scattered over the material of the skirt.

  “The buttons on the blouse are the perfect touch,” Delores told her. “They’re monarch butterflies too, aren’t they?”

  “That’s right. And Claire said that each one was hand painted.” Barbara looked pleased to receive so many compliments. “The minute Claire showed me this outfit I knew I just had to have it. And it goes so well with my mother’s amber beads.”

  “It’s perfect for you,” Andrea agreed. “Do you happen to know when Bill and Mike are coming?”

  “They left the office right after I did. They said they were going to run home and get dressed, and they should be here any . . .” Barbara stopped talking and pointed to the doorway. “There’s our host and hostess.”

  “What a perfect ad for cosmetic surgery,” Delores commented, as Roger and Doctor Bev entered the lounge.

  Andrea turned to Delores. “You think Roger had cosmetic surgery?”

  “I know Roger did. And she’s had some work done on her muffin tops.”

  “Muffin tops?” Hannah questioned her mother.

  “The rolls of fat that protrude from the side and back when you wear a tight skirt or tight pants,” Doc Knight explained.

  “That’s right,” Delores said, smiling at him. “Doctor Bev used to have them and now she doesn’t. I’m sure she had liposuction. And then there’s that little trout pout. Do you see it?”

  Hannah turned to Doc Knight. “Translate, please?”

  “Her lips have a slight pouty look, most likely from a bit too much Botox.”

  Delores nodded. “But that doesn’t even count the actual surgery. She was beginning to have crow’s feet, but they’re gone now. You know what crow’s feet are, don’t you?”

  “We know,” Barbara said with a sigh. “What else?”

  “Her elevens are gone and her parentheses are a lot less deep than they were. And she got rid of her turtleneck.”

  All three women turned to Doc Knight and he laughed.

  “All right. Elevens are slang for the vertical lines that appear between a person’s eyebrows when they’re frowning. They probably used Botox on those. And parentheses are the classic lines that develop from the sides of the nose down past the corners of the mouth.”

  “Botox?” Hannah guessed.

  “Not usually. They’re usually treated with injectable filler like Juvederm. The turtleneck is more difficult to treat and it usually requires a neck lift procedure.”

  “Surgery,” Delores said, “and it’s all elective. She left some cash at her doctor’s office. Or he did.”

  “How do you know so much about cosmetic surgery?” Andrea asked, even though Hannah tried to aim a kick at her under the table.

  “Well, I . . .”

  “Lori was good enough to do some online research for me,” Doc Knight said quickly. “I needed to know some of the slang terms so that I could refer my patients who wanted to enhance their appearance to the right cosmetic surgeon.”

  As Hannah watched, Delores turned to give Doc Knight a luminous smile that clearly said Thank you for getting me out of a pickle. Hannah smiled at both of them. There was no doubt in her mind that they were good for each other.

  “Whatever,” Barbara said, taking a sip of her diet cola. “She really looks good tonight.”

  “Yes, she does,” Hannah said, more charitable than she felt like being as Roger and Doctor Bev walked to the table for two that had been reserved for them.

  “I think she looks at least ten years younger,” Delores said. “And ever since Roger got his nose fixed, he’s been on the handsome side.”

  They were silent then, watching Roger and Doctor Bev make their way to the table. Hannah had never seen Doctor Bev looking so pretty, so young, and so beautifully dressed. She was wearing a tight-fitting silver dress that gleamed in the overhead halogen lights. Her makeup was perfect, her hair was perfect, and her smile was perfect. The only note of imperfection was the haughty look on her face.

  Then there was Roger, who walked at her side with an assurance that only comes from family money. He’d been raised in luxury and he was used to merely mentioning something only to have someone snap to attention to accomplish it. He was dressed in a black suit that fit so perfectly, Hannah knew it had been tailored especially for him. He had paired it with a lavender dress shirt and a lavender and silver tie. His blond hair was a shade darker than Doctor Bev’s blond hair and his eyes were an alert and piercing blue. His teeth were white and gleaming, but one was slightly crooked, giving his smile an endearing quality, and Hannah found herself wondering if that tooth had been specifically capped that way. His skin was a shade of tan that would have been impossible to achieve in a tanning booth or in the short length of time the Minnesota weather had permitted. Aruba, St. Thomas, St. Croix, or some other tropical vacation spot? Hannah’s mind suggested and she gave a slight nod. Roger was handsome and Bev was stunningly pretty. They were the golden couple.

  “Here come Mike and Bill,” Barbara said, gesturing toward the doorway. “And Norman’s there, too.”

  Hannah turned to look. Three men were standing in the doorway. One man was her date for the evening, another was the man she also dated and the chief detective at the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Department, and the third was her brother-in-law and Andrea’s h
usband, Bill Todd.

  Andrea gave a wave and the three men threaded their way across the room toward their table. A few steps and it was apparent that this could take a while. Everyone who saw them wanted to say hello and their progress was slow.

  “Did you see the luxury condos?” Barbara asked Andrea.

  “Yes. Roger listed them with Stan and I’m handling the sales. I took Hannah up there when we got here.”

  “I’ve been hearing all sorts of things about the penthouse. Bill said it’s got a grotto pool and a Jacuzzi.”

  “You should see it, Barbara. It’s spectacular.”

  “Especially the tropical rooftop garden,” Hannah added. “It covers half of the roof and the landscaping is already in. Andrea told me they’re even going to order a couple of fully grown palm trees.”

  “Will palm trees grow in Minnesota?” Barbara asked, looking dubious.

  “They will if you have a climate-controlled dome that covers the whole area,” Andrea was quick to explain.

  “I can hardly wait to see it!” Barbara took another sip of her diet drink. “I wonder if I could see my house from up there.”

  “I know you can, but not tonight. The dome didn’t come in time for the party, and Roger’s got the perimeter roped off. You can walk around the pool and Jacuzzi area, but you can’t go near the edge of the roof.”

  “I think I’ll go up there and look around. And I’ll stop and look at the condos on the second floor, too. I know I can’t afford one, but it never hurts to dream.” Barbara picked up her glass, stood up, and turned to Hannah. “The next time you check on the dessert table, would you bring me one of your cupcakes? I ran into Herb in the parking lot and he said they’re incredible.”