Devil's Food Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #14)(19)

The mixture in the saucepan had cooled enough so that it wouldn’t cook the eggs. Hannah added half of it to her bowl, along with half of the flour. Once that was mixed in, she added the other half of the chocolate mixture and the rest of the flour. When everything was thoroughly incorporated, she turned off the mixer, removed the beaters and the bowl, and gave the cake batter a final stir by hand.

Coconut cookies with mini chocolate chips would be good. Hannah thought about how she could make them more tropical as she filled the layer cake pans she’d prepared and slipped them into the oven. She was just setting the time for twenty minutes when she had what she thought was a great idea. She’d put something tropical on top of the cookie for a decoration. Now all she had to do was think of something that was tropical and would be delicious on top of a coconut and chocolate cookie.

She’d just dismissed pieces of fruit because they’d be sticky, when her mother opened the back door.

“Do you have a minute, Hannah?” Delores asked.

“Sure do. I just put my cakes in the oven and it’s time for a break. Coffee?”

“I’m all coffeed out, dear. Do you have any juice?”

“Orange, grapefruit, or peach.”

“I’ll have orange if you can spare it. I just dropped by to talk about my launch party.”

“Right,” Hannah said, beginning to panic. She hadn’t planned a thing for her mother’s second book launch party, and it was scheduled for a week from next Sunday.

“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.”