Devil's Food Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #14)(75)

Crack egg #4, separate the white part into the bowl with the other white parts, and dump the yolk into the refrigerator container so that you can add it to your scrambled eggs in the morning. Put the covered container in the refrigerator.

You now have two medium-sized bowls on the counter, one containing 3 egg yolks, the other containing 4 egg whites.

Beat the three egg yolks together until they’re well mixed.

Add the grated cheddar cheese to the egg yolks, and mix everything up with a fork.

Mix in the dry mustard, stirring until it’s incorporated.

Stir in the hot pepper sauce.

Add a generous sprinkle of salt and mix it in.

Sprinkle in some freshly ground pepper and stir well.

Set the bowl aside on the counter.

Add the cream of tartar to the bowl with the egg whites and stir it in. It’ll help the egg whites whip up faster and stiffer.

Whip the 4 egg whites until they stand up in stiff peaks. You can use an electric mixer or do this by hand with a whisk. (Doing it by hand takes some time and muscle—it’s a lot easier with a mixer.)

Add a large spoonful of stiff egg whites to the yolks and cheese mixture, stirring it in until it’s well combined. That’s called “tempering.”

Add the rest of the egg whites to the cheese mixture. Fold them in gently with a rubber spatula, trying to keep as much volume and air as you can in the mixture.

Hannah’s 2nd Note: To fold in the egg whites, simply place the side of the rubber spatula blade in the center of the bowl, dig it all the way down to the bottom, and then bring it toward you until it touches the side of the bowl nearest you. Keeping the rubber blade flat so that you lift as much of the mixture as possible, move the spatula up the side of the bowl, and flip the mixture you carried on the rubber blade in the center on top. Now give a bowl a little turn on the counter, and do the same thing all over again. It’s like carefully stirring with the flat of your spatula. Do this until there are no big clumps of egg white left. There may be little clumps, but that’s perfectly all right. (You just made a soufflé. It was easy, wasn’t it?)

Gently spoon the resulting mixture over the toast in the baking pan.

Bake at 450 degrees F. for 10 minutes, or until your Welsh Rarebit has browned and risen.

Hannah’s 3rd Note: I made this once at Andrea’s house for Andrea, Bill, Tracey, and me. (That was before Bethie was born.) Tracey thought I was calling it Welsh Rabbit and she didn’t want to eat it because she liked bunnies. I had to make her another piece just to show her that there weren’t any bunnies in it.

Yield: 2 extremely tasty servings.





Chapter Twenty-Four

It was almost one in the afternoon, and Hannah was exhausted. She’d talked to Andrea, who’d agreed to come in during her lunch break to talk about their trip to the Eagle, and she’d heard almost all of Lisa’s newest story in bits and pieces as Marge and Michelle came into the kitchen from the coffee shop to refill the glass cookie jars they kept behind the counter. In Hannah’s opinion, today’s story was even better than the one Lisa had told yesterday, and the word was spreading fast. They’d been packed, standing room only, from ten in the morning on.

As Hannah took yet another batch of cookies from the oven and slid the baking sheets onto the baker’s rack, there was a knock on the kitchen door. She finished her work in double time and hurried to the door to open it.

“Hi, Hannah!” Andrea dashed in and hung her coat on a hook by the back door. “I don’t think Mother saw me come in here. She invited me to dinner, but I told her I had something else I had to do.”

“You didn’t tell her we were going out to the Eagle, did you?”

“Of course not! I wouldn’t be that dumb! Mother would want to go along, and then we’d have to watch out for …” Andrea stopped speaking, a reaction to Hannah’s pained expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Say hello to Mother,” Hannah said, trying for humor that didn’t work. “I guess the cat’s out of the bag.”

“Don’t you take the species of my grandcat in vain!” Delores said, marching over to the stainless steel workstation and taking a seat. “Now what’s all this about going out to a horrible place like the Eagle?”

Hannah sighed deeply and plunged into the icy waters. “We really didn’t want you to know, Mother. We thought you’d worry and there’s really no reason …”

“Hannah!” Delores interrupted. “You’re just wasting our time making excuses that aren’t going to work anyway. I know you’re going to the Eagle tonight with Andrea and probably Michelle. Why?”

“To see Lenny Peske. He used to hang around with Paul in high school and they got into trouble together.”

“Not really serious trouble,” Andrea said quickly. “It was things like breaking into school lockers and playing not-so-nice tricks on teachers they didn’t like.”

“I see. And you think Paul’s murder may relate to some incident that happened in the past when he knew Lenny in high school?”

“It’s possible,” Hannah told her. “It’s another avenue we can explore.”

“Yes, I suppose that makes sense. Lenny’s not a suspect, is he?”

Hannah shook her head. “As far as we know, he doesn’t have a motive.”