Very Buried Cheesecake (Black Cat Cafe Cozy Mystery Series Book 4)
Page 13
Well, I had a craving for cheesecake so I piled them into their car seats and we made a trip to the supermarket. Both boys thought that was an exciting adventure because they remembered the fun shopping carts at the store. Sure enough, they spotted the green cart, designed like a car with two steering wheels. Perfect, I thought.
As I found the items on my list that I didn’t already have at home - 1 pound ricotta cheese, two 8 oz packages of cream cheese, 1 pint of sour cream and a lemon - they happily turned the pretend wheel and waved at other shoppers. The last addition was a box of graham crackers for the boys.
On our ride home, we were lucky to pass a flock of turkeys on the side of the road. One male had his tail feathers opened in a big display. I told the boys he was trying to impress the females.
Mark asked, “Do turkeys get married?”
I explained that animals don’t get married like people do but they do form bonds and big families.
Danny thought about this and asked, “I wonder when Mom will get married.”
I told him that Mom was already married, curious as to where his train of thought would lead.
“She’s already married?” Danny asked, utterly confused.
“Yes, to your dad,” I replied, thinking that would clear everything up.
“To Dad??” He was shocked. After a long pause he added, “When I get home I’m going to tell Dad that he’s married.”
I tried to hide my laughter, but it was difficult.
Once we got home, I unloaded the groceries and got the boys set up on my kitchen island for a snack. They each got a graham cracker covered with cream cheese and a selection of berries to put on top. They immediately got busy choosing strawberries, raspberries and blueberries to cover the cream cheese, occasionally skipping the cream cheese and sending a berry directly into their mouth.
While they buried their graham crackers and cream cheese, I got busy making my:
Very Buried Cheesecake
This cheesecake is a little different from most—there is no crust. All you need is one large bowl to mix all the ingredients: 1 pound ricotta cheese, two 8 ounce packages of cream cheese, 1 ½ cups white sugar, 4 whole eggs, 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 3 tablespoons flour and ¼ cup melted butter.
Mix everything together well with an electric mixer.
Add 1 pint sour cream and mix that in.
Pour the mixture into a spring form pan. Carefully slide the pan into a cold oven, turn the oven to 350F degrees and bake for 1 hour. Turn the oven off but leave the cheesecake in the oven overnight (or for eight hours) without opening the oven door. Refrigerate before serving.
I like to serve this cheesecake with a big bowl of fruit, usually a mixture of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, but of course, use whatever is your favorite. Each serving is buried with the fruit which looks beautiful and tastes even better!
Enjoy!
~Lyndsey
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lyndsey Cole lives in New England in a small rural town with her husband, dogs, cats and chickens. She has plenty of space to grow lots of beautiful perennials. Sitting in the garden with the scent of lilac, peonies, lily of the valley or whatever is in bloom, stimulates her imagination about mysteries and romance.
ONE LAST THING . . .
If you enjoyed this installment of The Black Cat Café Cozy Mystery Series, be sure to join my FREE COZY MYSTERY BOOK CLUB! Be in the know for new releases, promotions, sales, and the possibility to receive advanced reader copies. Join the club here—http://LyndseyColeBooks.com
OTHER BOOKS BY LYNDSEY COLE
The Black Cat Café Series
BlueBuried Muffins
Annie Fisher is scared. She’s scared of the mess her boyfriend, Max Parker, is in the middle of and she has to get out of his house. She puts a whole state between them and drives like a madwoman from Cooper, NY to her hometown of Catfish Cove, NH where she hopes she’ll be safe.
She decides to start a new life, a life she ran away from two years ago but is finding herself missing as soon as she gets home. Annie immediately has a place to live, a job at her Aunt Leona’s new café—Black Cat Café—and plenty of boyfriend prospects. Unfortunately, she also has plenty of bad things follow her.
Like Max Parker. Only the next time she sees him he’s dead. Suddenly everyone she runs into turns into a potential suspect. There are ghosts from her past and new neighbors that make her hair stand on end. And right in the middle of everything is Annie with Max’s last warning to her—Don’t trust anyone. Will those words prove to keep her safe or put too much distance between Annie and those trying to help her?
StrawBuried in Chocolate
Annie Fisher wakes up on Friday the thirteenth, but she reminds herself she’s not superstitious. The Black Cat Café is loaded up with special Valentine’s Day goodies, the most popular being Annie’s chocolate covered strawberries. She is so looking forward to a romantic weekend with current flame, landlord and neighbor, Jason Hunter.
But when her Aunt Leona finds a body in Jason’s house, all plans for that romantic weekend are scrapped. All Annie, Leona, Mia and Jason can think about is who killed Lacy McGuire and why.
With more and more clues pointing toward Leona as the killer, they need to work fast to figure out who the real killer is before Leona ends up in jail for good. To complicate matters for Annie, information surfaces about her birth parents, a mystery she’s been working on for the past few years. She thinks she wants to find the answers, but will it destroy her world?
Now, Annie must struggle to save her aunt, but as she questions neighbors and relatives, will she put herself in danger with the real killer? Will she save her aunt but get herself killed in the process?
BlackBuried Pie
The Fourth of July weekend promises lots of excitement for the cozy town of Catfish Cove. A dog parade, bonfire, barbecue and fireworks are sure to bring in the crowds and give a boost to all businesses, including the Black Cat Café.
To prepare for the onslaught of customers, Annie Fisher has to keep their supply up of blackberries from Hayworth Fruit Farms for everyone’s favorite, blackberry pie. But when she finds the berry farmer unconscious in his field, her mind immediately goes to the worst possible scenario. To make matters worse, the farmer’s neighbor turns up dead and anonymous messages drag Annie into the mystery when all she wants to do is spend time with her handsome boyfriend.
With clues pointing in every direction, Annie needs to figure out who’s lying and who she can trust before she ends up as the next victim in the killer’s web of deceit.
Very Buried Cheesecake
This should be an exciting time for Annie with the opening of her new art gallery, but she’s stressed and distracted preparing for her first photography opening. With her friend Martha and her new employee, Camilla, working to get the gallery set up, everything seems to be on track.
But when Annie stumbles on a body floating at the edge of Heron Lake, her worst fears are realized. Memories of her previous photography exhibit and the ensuing murder investigation come back to haunt her.
To make matters worse, the new detective in town points her finger at Annie right from their first meeting at the crime scene. Is this an ominous sign of what’s in store for Annie? With mysterious money disappearing and stolen jewelry showing up from thin air, a pre wedding dinner cruise and Martha’s on again/off again wedding, all is not what it seems.
Now Annie struggles to avoid being sucked into the mayhem. Will she be able to put her fears aside and figure out how to stay ahead of the killer?
RaspBuried Torte
When renovations on an old house in Catfish Cove take a turn for the worse, Annie finds herself at odds with the new detective in town. Again. Not only did Annie find the body, but Detective Christy Crank seems to have a chip on her shoulder that she takes out on Annie.
Rumors of hidden fortunes in the walls of the old house bring out treasure hunters in droves. Could one of them
have killed to secure their own fortune? And if so, who was it?
As Annie digs deeper to clear the name of her friend, and Cranky’s top suspect, Danny Davis, she uncovers lies about alibis that only add more suspects to her list. Dreams of wealth make plenty of people look guilty, but who is the real murderer?
Annie knows she has to figure it out with the help of her friends before Danny takes the fall for something he didn’t do. Will she make it in time before the killer comes back to cover their tracks?
The Lily Bloom Series
Begonias Mean Beware
Misty Valley has a new flower shop in town, and as soon as Lily Bloom hangs the open sign, she lands the biggest wedding in town. Plus, the handsome new guy moves in right next door to Lily. She’s well on her way to a successful and exciting season.
But when the groom is found dead in her kitchen just days before he’s supposed to be walking down the aisle, Lily has to arrange the trail of flowers to try to solve the mystery. With the help of her scooter-riding, pot-smoking mother, Iris, her sister, Daisy, and her dog, Rosie, Lily races from one disaster to another, all the while keeping herself out of the killer’s sight.
Will she solve the cascade of events in time or get caught by the criminals running illegal gambling and selling drugs in Misty Valley? Will romance blossom between Lily and her new neighbor?
Queen of Poison
Business at Lily’s Beautiful Blooms Flower Shop is growing like weeds after a rainstorm. She’s been asked to do the main flower arrangement for the Arts in Bloom opening at the Misty Valley Museum. Everything seems to be coming up rosy and she’s even falling head over heels for the man of her dreams, Ryan Steele, her neighbor and the police chief of Misty Valley.
Until she sees a sleek red convertible drive into his driveway. And an even sleeker red head climbs out of the car. She thought that was all she had to deal with until the founder of the museum drops dead in her arms and another body has all fingers pointing toward Lily.
With help from her mom, Iris, her sister, Daisy and their friends Marigold and Tamara, Lily tries to arrange the clues to point to the real killer. Can she sort it out in time before a third body—maybe hers—ends up in the morgue? Can she get her romance growing again with the handsome police chief of Misty Valley? Or will she be left to sort through the clues alone?
Roses are Dead
Business is popping for Lily as wedding season is in full swing. The brides are all over the place from easy-to-please to last-minute-panics. But one in particular stands out—a leggy brunette who is looking for plenty of red roses for her wedding to Police Chief Ryan Steele.
Lily is beside herself with betrayal that Ryan would lead her on like that, all the while engaged to this beauty. It’s almost too much to take until the bride is found dead, surrounded by none other than the very roses she’d been admiring.
Lily shoots to the top of the suspect list, a place she’s been all too often lately. And as she starts to uncover more about the woman’s past, she’s thrown into another game of cat and mouse. Only she’s not sure if she’s the cat or the mouse. Will she be able to follow the clues to the real killer in time? Or is everyone connected to Ryan Steele in danger and Lily could be next?
Drowning in Dahlias
The business is heating up at Beautiful Blooms and Lily’s flower arrangements can be found all over Misty Valley at any type of event. And to add to the chaos, she’s lost the full time help of her sister, Daisy, who has started a specialty cake making business on the side. Together, they make the perfect team, especially when wealthy estate owner, Walter Nash, enlists both of them to cater and decorate for the 55th birthday party for his wife.
But when they show up with their deliveries and find the love of his life, Harriet Nash, dead on the floor, the dynamic duo is suddenly threatened. With a house full of family and friends to celebrate her birthday, there are too many suspects to keep straight.
Lily’s biggest challenge now is to find the killer before the killer finds her. But without a murder weapon at the crime scene, the questions continue to pile up without any answers. Who would have wanted Harriet dead the most? She had plenty of money, but would someone have been so greedy? As Lily and Daisy get closer to solving the murder, things take a turn for the worse with a threat on Lily’s life.
Hidden by the Hydrangeas
Lily Bloom can’t seem to keep her thoughts away from marriage. Maybe it’s just because her mom tied the knot with her childhood sweetheart Walter Nash, but it’s gotten Lily thinking about her own relationship with Ryan Steele and if it’s going anywhere.
But those thoughts are quickly replaced with who is carrying a dead body, and who that dead body might be. The only thing Lily knows is that she’s been spotted by the killer so she has to hope this mystery is solved before she’s the next one in a body bag.
When Walter’s best friend turns up as the likeliest suspect, Lily’s mom is beside herself with worry and convinces Lily that she’s the best person to solve this case. But suspects keep piling up with not quite enough evidence to prove anything. Will Lily be able to put all the pieces together before the killer sniffs out her trail?
Christmas Tree Catastrophe
Lily Bloom couldn’t be more excited for Christmas Eve when she will say “I do” to the man she loves. She just has the library opening to get through and then all the town’s focus will be on her.
But things start going wrong almost from the very first moment she’s getting setup for the library’s event. Not only is there plenty of disagreement among those helping, but one of the co-chairs who is in charge of the whole event winds up dead the day before the ceremony.
With everyone who was helping setup under a microscope, Lily is in a race against time to be able to get married. When one of her best friends winds up in jail for the murder Lily knows she didn’t commit, the pressure’s on to find the real murderer.
Will Lily be able to prove her friend’s innocence? Or will she find herself in even more trouble and face a wedding in a jail cell or the hospital? Or worse—will there be no wedding at all because the bride is the new target?