Fudge Cupcake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #5)(54)

"Come on, Moishe. Doctor Bob said you'd like it. It tastes really good." Hannah held Moishe with one hand and nudged the tip of the dropper against his mouth with the other. "It'll be all over in a second if you just open up."

Moishe glared at her balefully and his mouth remained tightly closed. For a cat who normally mewed and yowled on his prowls around the condo, Moishe had gone perfectly mute the moment he'd spotted the dropper in her hand.

"Don't make me late," Hannah warned, nudging a little harder with the dropper. "It's down the hatch with the vitamins and then you can have the food you really like."

Moishe gave a growl deep in his throat, but his mouth remained tightly closed. Hannah could tell he wasn't buying it. The growl gained in volume as she continued to poke at his mouth with the dropper and suddenly, as quick as lightning, Moishe backed out from under her hand, did a flip in midair, landed with a thud on the carpet, and streaked off toward the bedroom.

"Uh-oh," Hannah groaned, fearing the worst as she followed him. Just as she expected, Moishe had taken up a highly defensible position under her bed, where he knew she couldn't reach him.

"You know I can't pull you out when you go under there," Hannah complained, dropping to her knees to peer under the bedspread. "Come on out and take your medicine, Moishe. The other kitties like it."

A keening yowl emanated from the dark recesses where the head of the bed met the far wall. Hannah stretched out on her stomach and reached under the bed as far as she could, but the only things she encountered were a crumpled tissue, an old sock with a hole in the toe, and a ball point pen.

More yowls ensued as she pulled her hand back, and Hannah sighed as she got to her feet. "Right. Sure. You wouldn't do it when I had the dropper ready, but now you open your mouth!"



Once Hannah's five groups were involved in their baking, she motioned for Beatrice to join her by the rack of cupcakes she'd baked. "Try one of these. I didn't frost them this time, but you can probably tell if I'm on the right track."

"I think I can," Beatrice said, taking one of the cupcakes and peeling off the paper liner. She took a bite, chewed and swallowed, and then she shook her head. "Sorry, Hannah. These aren't right. Alma's were heavy, but not this heavy. Is that peanut butter I taste?"

"Yes. Whatever Alma used, it wasn't that thick. I knew it wasn't going to work, but since I'd mixed them up already, I figured I might as well bake them."

"They're not Alma's, but they're good," Beatrice said, reaching out for a second one. "Maybe you've got a new recipe here, Hannah."

"That's how I develop some of my cookie recipes. I start with an idea of how it should taste and a basic no-frills cookie recipe. Then I add and subtract ingredients until what I bake matches what I've imagined. Sometimes I stop short of the mark if I stumble on a really good variation. I remember when I was trying to make…”

"Hannah? We've got a problem."

Hannah stopped in mid-sentence and turned to see Winnie Henderson waving at her. Winnie looked distressed and there wasn't much in this world that rattled Winnie. She never gave her exact age, but Hannah knew that she was old enough to have outlived four husbands, given birth to two children by each, and have almost three-dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren that loved to come and stay with "Grannie," who'd played on an all-female baseball team during the Second World War and could still hit a ball out of the park.

"I'll tell you more later," Hannah told Beatrice, and then she hurried over to Winnie's kitchen workstation. "What's wrong, Winnie?"

Winnie gestured toward her mixing bowl and gave the contents a stir. "It's this banana bread. It smells great, but it's going to come out as heavy as a rock. Stir it yourself if you don't think I'm right."

"No need for that," Hannah said, shaking her head when Winnie offered her the spoon. "I can see you're right. The batter's much too stiff and it probably won't rise at all. Are you sure you measured everything correctly?"

Geraldine Goetz, who was the measurer in the group, nodded quickly. "I know we did. Luanne stood next to me and we double-checked everything."

"How about the flour. Did you sift it?"

"No," it was Lolly Kramer's turn to answer. "It called for unsifted flour. I scooped it out and leveled it off with a knife just the way you told us to."

Hannah smiled. "You did that exactly right, Lolly. And if you measured correctly and used all the right ingredients, the fault has to be with the recipe. Whose is it?"

"Regina Todd's," Winnie handed her copy of the recipe to Hannah. "Do you think we should call her to see if she left out something?"

"Don't bother. If this is Regina's recipe, I know what's wrong. Show me the eggs you used, Patsy."

Patsy Beringer opened the refrigerator, took out a carton of eggs, and handed them to Hannah. "I used these. They're okay, aren't they?"

"They would be if this weren't Regina's recipe." Hannah breathed a sigh of relief now that she'd arrived at the answer to the problem. There would have been big fireworks between the two families if Hannah had failed to put Andrea's mother-in-law's recipe in the Lake Eden Cookbook.