Devil's Food Cake Murder (8 page)

“Kelly-Anne, my friend in England, sent me a marvelous recipe that would be perfect for the refreshments.”

Hannah was glad her mother couldn’t see the anxiety on her face as she went to fetch the juice. English recipes needed to be converted to American measurements and they usually turned out to be odd amounts like a third of a half-cup, or nine and two-thirds ounces. Of course she always rounded off, but she didn’t feel confident doing it.

When she carried the juice back to her mother, Hannah thought she’d erased the panicked expression from her face, but the anxiety in her eyes must have given her away, because Delores laughed.

“Relax, dear” she said. “I know how you hate to convert recipes, so I asked Kelly-Anne to do it. She converted everything to American measurements, right down to the British gas mark for the oven.”

Hannah breathed a sigh of relief as she sat down at the workstation across from her mother. One of her worries was gone. As long as the recipe was for the type of dessert she’d made before and didn’t have English ingredients that Florence couldn’t get down at the Red Owl, like treacle, she could oblige her mother by making whatever it was. “What type of recipe is it?” she asked, crossing her fingers for luck.

“It’s a cookie recipe. They’re called Orange Creams, but you can make them into Lemon Creams if you’d rather. I thought we could have both kinds at the party.”

“Sounds good,” Hannah said, giving a relieved smile. “Did you bring the recipe with you?”

“Of course I did, dear.” Delores extracted it from her purse and handed it to her daughter.

Hannah read it through quickly. Kelly-Anne had even written little notes next to some of the ingredients to explain that castor sugar was really superfine sugar, and icing sugar was confectioner’s sugar.

“What do you think, dear?” Delores asked when Hannah put the recipe back down on the stainless steel work surface.

“They’re rolled cookies. We don’t usually make them here because they’re more work, but we can certainly do it. And they sound really delicious.”

“Then you’ll bake both kinds for my party?”

“Of course we will. I think they’ll go very well with champagne, and I’ll bake a test batch so you can taste them.”

“Wonderful!” Delores looked pleased. “I have thirty-seven acceptances so far, and I just know more will come in next week. I think you’d better plan for a hundred. If any cookies are left over, you can serve them here at The Cookie Jar.”

“I don’t think there’ll be many left. If these taste as scrumptious as I think they’ll be, we’d better make double.”

Delores began to get up from her stool. “I’d better get back …”

“Just a minute, Mother,” Hannah interrupted before Delores could rise to her feet. “I really need your help.”

“Of course.” Delores settled back down again. “What is it, dear?”

“It’s about Bob and Claire’s party after church on Sunday. Grandma Knudson wants me to make some kind of tropical cookie since they’re sailing to Hawaii, and I’m thinking about a cookie with coconut and chocolate chips.”

“Chocolate chips aren’t really tropical, dear.”

“I know that, but chocolate goes so well with coconut.”

“That’s true.” Delores thought about it for a moment. “Why don’t you make half of your coconut cookies with chocolate and the other half with candied papaya. You could chop it up and mix it in like you did the time you ran out of raisins and you wanted to make Oatmeal Raisin Crisps.”

“Good idea, Mother! I’d forgotten all about those cookies.”

“Well, they were excellent. You really ought to make them again.”

“I will. Any other suggestions for the bon voyage party?”

“Yes. I think you should put a macadamia nut on top of each cookie. That’s so Hawaiian. And you could serve them on your father’s surfboard. The top is almost flat like a big plate.”

“Dad had a surfboard?” Hannah was amazed. She just couldn’t imagine the father she’d always thought of as non-athletic on a surfboard.

“It’s just decorative, dear, one of those touristy mementos they sell in the shops at the airport. As I remember, it had palm trees and waves painted all over it. Your father hung it on the wall in the living room for a couple of years after we were first married.”

“And you still have it?”

“Yes. It’s up in the attic where it’s been ever since your father decided to take it off the wall. You can go up there and get it if you want it.”

Hannah made up her mind almost instantly. “I want it. It’ll make a perfect cookie platter, and I can sanitize it by covering it with plastic wrap. How about you, Mother? Didn’t you bring any souvenirs home from Hawaii?”

“Yes, but they didn’t last long. They sold macadamia nuts at the airport, and I just loved the chocolate-covered ones. That was before anyone had them here, and I brought back six boxes. And that gives me another idea. Why don’t you call Florence and see if she can order some? You could use plain macadamia nuts on the papaya cookies and chocolate-covered macadamia nuts on the others.”

“That’s perfect! For someone who doesn’t bake, you have great ideas.”

“Thank you, dear. I’m glad I could be of some help.” Delores rose to her feet, and this time Hannah didn’t stop her. “I’ll see you on Saturday, dear. If you’d like to stay for dinner, I can make Hawaiian Pot Roast or E-Z Lasagna.”

Hannah’s stomach roiled at the thought of eating her mother’s E-Z Lasagna or Hawaiian Pot Roast. It wasn’t that they were bad. It was just that they were the only two entrees Delores ever made. Every week, when she went to her mother’s house for their mother-daughter dinner, she had one or the other. There was no way she could face either one again on the weekend.

“Hannah?”

Her mother was waiting for an answer and Hannah put on her most regretful expression. “I’m sorry, Mother, but I have plans for Saturday night.”

“Oh. Well…another time then. I have work to do anyway. The outline on my next Regency romance is due in two weeks.”

“Do you know the title yet?”

“I’m not sure, but it has to be alliterative. My titles are always alliterative. Do you have any ideas?”

Hannah thought about that. Her mother’s first book had been titled A Match for Melissa, and the book she was launching next week was A Season for Samantha. “How about A Boyfriend for Bettina?”

“It’s too modern, dear. They didn’t use the word boyfriend in Regency times.”

“Okay. How about…A Husband for Holly?”

Delores mulled it over for a moment, and then she smiled. “I like that. Holly can be a commoner and the man she marries at the end of the book can be a titled gentleman. Some gentlemen did marry beneath their station, you know. And that elevated their brides to their station.”

“If you marry a duke, you’re a duchess?”

“Exactly right.”

“What happens if a titled woman marries beneath her station? Does her new husband get elevated in status?”

“No, dear. It doesn’t work the other way around. As a matter of fact, when a duke died, his duchess could no longer own their land or their homes. Her oldest son became the duke, and his wife became the new duchess. She was demoted to dowager duchess status.”

“What status is that?”

“It’s a steep step down, dear. A dowager duchess had to live in a small cottage called the dower house, a distance away from the duke’s castle. She had to give up all her jewelry and money, because they were an asset of the estate. Everything she had belonged to the new duke. And she depended totally on her son’s largess for any monies she needed to live.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Of course it’s not, but that’s the way it was then.”

“Maybe she would have been better off not marrying at all,” Hannah speculated.

“No, dear. Unmarried women were treated worse than pariahs. You see, all the eligible young ladies were trotted out in fine clothing for the Season in London.”

“Season?”

“That’s what they called it, dear. It was held right after the gentlemen finished hunting on their country estates and before Parliament was called back into session. The eligible young ladies were presented to the queen, and feted at balls and parties. It was arranged so that the unmarried men could take their pick of the debutants. A young lady was expected to receive at least one proposal of marriage.”

“What happened to the young ladies who didn’t receive proposals?”

“That’s the sad thing, dear. If a young woman went through more than one Season, she was considered to be on the shelf. She was often ridiculed and given uncomplimentary names like ape-leader.”

“That’s horrible!”

“Yes it is. Things are a lot better now. Look at you, dear. You’re over thirty and you’re not married. That would make you a spinster in Regency England. To make matters worse, you’re in trade. That was something a woman didn’t do unless it was to help in a shop owned by her husband.”

“So I would have been totally unsuitable?”

“Oh, my yes!” Delores glanced up at the clock on the wall. “I’m late, dear. I really have to rush.”

Once her mother had left, Hannah sat down to wait for her cakes to come out of the oven. Regency England didn’t sound like a very good place to live if you were an independent woman. Every time she thought the current political climate was intolerable, she’d remember what happened to women then and thank her lucky stars she hadn’t been born back in Regency times.

RED DEVIL’S FOOD CAKE

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

1 cup water

3/4 cup (1 and 1/2 sticks, 6 ounces) salted butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white (granulated) sugar

1-ounce square unsweetened chocolate (I used Baker’s)

1 teaspoon instant espresso coffee powder

1 and 1/2 cups white (granulated) sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 eggs (room temperature—float them in a cup with hot water if you forgot to take them out of the refrigerator last night)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups cake flour (I used Swansdown)***

*** - If you don’t have cake flour, you can use 2 and 2/3 cups all-purpose flour. Your cake won’t be as light in texture, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to chocolate cake!

Combine the water, butter, white sugar, and brown sugar in a small saucepan on the stovetop.

Break (or cut) the square of unsweetened chocolate into two parts and add them to the saucepan.

Turn the heat to MEDIUM HIGH and heat the mixture, stirring frequently, until the butter melts.

Continue to stir until the mixture is smooth and the chocolate has melted.

Pull the saucepan off the heat and add the teaspoon of instant espresso coffee powder. Stir it until the espresso powder dissolves.

Let the mixture cool while you start in on the rest of the cake.

Prepare two 9-inch round cake pans by spraying the insides with baking spray (the kind with flour in it). Tear off two sheets of parchment paper slightly larger than the bottom of your cake pans. Stack the parchment paper, place one cake pan on top, and trace around the bottom with a pen or pencil. Staying inside the pen or pencil mark, cut out the tracing you made. Fit the paper circles into the bottoms of your prepared pans, and then spray the parchment circles with baking spray.

Hannah’s 1st Note: This cake is easy to make with an electric stand mixer, but you can also do it with a hand mixer or even completely by hand.

Measure out one and a half cups of white sugar. Add about a third of it to the mixing bowl. (Just eyeball it—you don’t have to be exact.)

Add the half-teaspoon of salt, the teaspoon of baking soda, and the 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder to the mixing bowl.

Turn the mixer on LOW. Let it run for thirty seconds or so and then shut it off. (If you do this by hand, make sure everything is thoroughly mixed.)

Add the second third of the sugar to your bowl, turn the mixer on LOW again, and mix it for another thirty seconds or so.

Measure the cocoa powder and add it to your bowl. Mix it in on LOW speed (Take it from me, you don’t want it all over your kitchen!) for another thirty seconds or so.

Pour in the final third of sugar, turn the mixer on LOW again, and mix for a full minute.

With the mixer still running on LOW, add one egg to your bowl. Mix it in thoroughly.

Add the second egg to your bowl and mix that in thoroughly.

With the mixer still running on LOW add the 2 teaspoons of vanilla and mix it in thoroughly. Turn off the mixer.

Feel the outside of the saucepan with the chocolate and butter mixture. If it’s not so hot it could cook the eggs, you can work with it now. If it’s still too hot, let it cool a little more.

When you’re ready to add the chocolate and butter mixture, turn the mixer on MEDIUM speed and SLOWLY pour half of the mixture into your bowl. Mix it in thoroughly, and then shut off the mixer.

Now measure out your cake flour by scooping it up and then leveling it off with the blade of a table knife. DON’T PACK IT DOWN IN THE CUP.

Add half of the flour to your bowl, turn the mixer on LOW, and mix it in thoroughly.

With the mixer still running on LOW, add the other half of the chocolate and butter mixture to your bowl, pouring it in SLOWLY and mixing it thoroughly. Shut off the mixer.

Add the rest of the flour to your bowl. Turn your mixer on LOW and mix until everything is well incorporated. Increase the mixer speed to MEDIUM and mix for a full minute. Then shut off the mixer.

Take the bowl from the mixer and give the batter a good stir by hand, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl. When you’re satisfied that the cake batter is well mixed, divide it as evenly as you can between the two cake pans.

Bake at 325 degrees F. for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out clean. (Mine took 22 minutes.)

Hannah’s 2nd Note: If you want to make this cake into mini cupcakes, fill paper-lined or greased mini-cupcake tins 3/4 full with batter. Bake them at 350 degrees F. for 15 minutes.

Remove the pans from the oven and cool them completely on a wire racks. To remove the cakes from their pans, simply run the blade of a table knife around the inside edges of the pans and tip the cakes out.