Spider Web Brownies #Halloween recipe by @LeslieBudewitz

LESLIE BUDEWITZ: At our house, while we don’t do a lot to celebrate Halloween, we do take seriously the truth that Halloween treats should be fun, and not too scary to make! That’s the beauty of this recipe. Use your favorite boxed brownie mix – we’re partial to Ghirardelli’s Double Chocolate – and add a little seasonal flair for your ghosts and goblins.

Here’s a few Halloween treats from years past: 

Puff Pastry Rattlers

Spider Deviled Eggs 

Boo Scotti 

Mummy Pizza Puffs 

Veggie Skeleton with Brain Dip

PS: I finally figured out how to embed a PDF of the recipe for easy printing. Scroll down to the 💕 for the link. 

Spider Web Brownies

your favorite brownie mix

4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 large egg yolk

milk to thin filling, if needed

Heat your oven to the temperature recommended for your pan type and size. 

Prepare the brownie recipe as instructed and spread the batter in a greased pan, again using the size recommended for your mix. 

In a small bowl, combine the cream cheese, sugar, and flour. Mix until smooth. Add the egg yolk and mix again until smooth. Spoon mixture into a pastry bag or a small zippered plastic bag, and cut off the very tip of the bag. If your filling appears too thick, use a little milk to thin it. 

Start in the center of your pan and squeeze out a small pool of the cream cheese filling. Use the bag to draw circles around the center pool, about 1" apart. Use a table knife, wetting the tip, to draw filling out from the center pool, across the circles, to the edge of the pan. Repeat, moving around the pan, roughly every 2", to create a web-like pattern. You can use any remaining filling to create spokes where you ran the knife, if you’d like. 

Bake according to package directions, until the brownies just begin to away from the edge of the pan. (Remember that it’s easy to overbake brownies – don’t do it!) The center will rise during baking but sink a bit when the brownies cool. Cool pan on a wire rack before cutting. 

Happy Haunting! 

💕 Click here for a free printable PDF! 

ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook 

Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.  

“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

TO ERR IS CUMIN:A Spice Shop Mystery (Seventh St. Books, out now in paper, ebook, and audio)

From the cover: One person’s treasure is another’s trash. . .

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, wants nothing more than to live a quiet life for a change, running her shop and working with customers eager to spice up their cooking. But when she finds an envelope stuffed with cash in a ratty old wingback left on the curb, she sets out to track down the owner.

Pepper soon concludes that the chair and its stash may belong to young Talia Cook, new in town and nowhere to be seen. Boz Bosworth, an unemployed chef Pepper’s tangled with in the past, shows up looking for the young woman, but Pepper refuses to help him search. When Boz is found floating in the Ship Canal, only a few blocks from Talia’s apartment, free furniture no longer seems like such a bargain.

On the hunt for Talia, Pepper discovers a web of connections threatening to ensnare her best customer. The more she probes, the harder it gets to tell who’s part of an unsavory scheme of corruption—and who might be the next victim.

Between her quest for an elusive herb, helping her parents remodel their new house, and setting up the Spice Shop’s first cooking class, Pepper’s got a full plate. Dogged by a sense of obligation to find the rightful owner of the hidden treasure, she keeps on showing up and asking questions.

One mistake, and she could find herself cashing out. . .

Available at Amazon  * Barnes & Noble  * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * And your local booksellers!

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. 

A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.

Spotlight on Silent Nights Are Murder #SpotlightSunday #Christmas #Giveaway

 

Merry Christmas! 

Alright, not really. It's still October. But today is my turn in the spotlight for my Christmas cozy, Silent Nights Are Murder. In case you're new to the series, let me give you a quick overview. 

Poppy is a plus-sized, 44 year old widow, who returns to her hometown of Cape May, NJ, for her 25th reunion, to face off against the cheerleaders who bullied her throughout high school. One of the cheerleaders ends up dead in front of Poppy's old locker,(rude) and another cheerleader arrests her for the murder. Poppy has to prove her innocence so she can escape beach hell and her crazy Great Aunt Ginny, and get herself and her very naughty black smoke Persian - Sir Figaro Newton - back home to the safety of the Food Network and her friends - Ben and Jerry. As you can see from this shelf of books, things do not go according to plan, and Poppy stays in Cape May, turning Aunt Ginny's house into a B&B. She learns to let go of her past and embrace her new life and her new family. Fast forward 8 books later... Now it's Christmas, and Poppy has plans for the perfect holiday, but Mischief and Mayhem - aka Figaro and Aunt Ginny - plot against her. Of course the dead guy in the freezer of a restaurant kitchen with the note GET POPPY pinned to his chest doesn't invoke the holly jolly feels either. If you want to laugh your butt off for the holidays, check it out.

Gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister and her aunt Ginny are looking forward to a quiet, homey Christmas at their B&B in Cape May, but unfortunately, death isn’t taking a holiday this year . . .

Ever since Thanksgiving, when an engagement ring in a velvet box—and no gift tag—was left behind, Poppy and her pals have been left with an unsolved mystery. But at least this mystery isn’t the kind that involves murder. That all changes when the body of a fish supplier is discovered in the kitchen of her ex’s restaurant—and he’s frozen, not fresh.

For once, it’s not Poppy who tripped over the corpse, yet she can’t escape being drawn in since the victim has a note taped to him reading Get Poppy. Figures—an engagement ring isn't labeled, but the dead guy is addressed to her. Now, while Aunt Ginny plans a tree-trimming party and pressures Poppy to decode a mysterious old diary, the amateur sleuth is asked to “unofficially” go undercover at the restaurant to help the police. Until then, the only crime Poppy had been dealing with was the cat Figaro’s repeated thefts of bird ornaments from the tree; now it looks like it’s going to be a murder-y Christmas after all . . .

Silent Nights Are Murder has all the Christmassy excitement and joy that you want from the holiday season - along with a murder to solve of course. Because nothing says Christmas like a dead guy in a restaurant freezer!

Make sure you go to my website and sign up for my newsletter. There is currently a super secret preview for my next series, the Layla Virtue Mysteries, along with a special page with Layla's playlist.

Here are just some of the ways you can get your own copy in time for the holidays.

Buy on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Nights-Murder.../dp/149674442X

Buy on Barnes & Noble 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/.../silent.../1144532649

Buy on Bookshop.org https://bookshop.org/.../silent-nights-are.../21102989

Silent Nights Are Murder is full of gluten-free recipes for some of my Holiday favorites including:

Gluten-Free Cherry Coconut Balls

And

Gluten-Free Gingerbread Madeleines

For a chance to win a copy of Silent Nights Are Murder, let me know in the comments what is your favorite Christmas or Hanukkah activity? That one thing you like to do to celebrate the holiday.

Libby Klein grew up in Cape May, NJ where she attended high school in the '80s. Her 
classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/

Books are easier to wrap!

Mummy Hand Pies #HalloweenRecipe from Molly MacRae

These mummies are full of personality, taste delicious, and are as easy to make as it is to say BOO! I made half with cinnamon filling (great stuff) and half with strawberry jam. Next time I might try red or black raspberry jam or cherry pie filling. 

Mummy Hand Pies

(adapted from the King Arthur Test Kitchen)

Makes 8 hand pies

 

Ingredients

Pie dough for a 9” double-crust pie (ready-made or homemade)

1/2 cup strawberry jam

Cinnamon sugar filling (mix together 4 teaspoons softened butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon)

1 egg mixed with 1 tablespoon water (for attaching mummy wrappings)

1 tablespoon butter, melted (for brushing)

Candy eyeballs

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Roll out half the dough into a rectangle about 9” x 13”. The dough should be a little less than 1/4” thick. Cut out four 5” x 2” rectangles. Save the remainder for the mummy wrappings. Transfer rectangles to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Repeat with the other half of the dough, making a total of eight rectangles.

Note: I rolled my first rectangle a bit too big and a bit too thin—so much so that I was able to cut all 8 pies from the first piece. But they really were too thin. To fix that I rolled the second rectangle the same way, cut out 8 more 5” x 2” rectangles and set them on top of the first set. That solved the problem and the pies were lovely and flaky.  

The second set of 8 rectangles on top of the first ones because I rolled them too thin

For the mummy wrappings, reroll the scraps of dough about 1/8” thick. Cut into thin strips about 1/4" wide and into varying lengths between 2” and 4”. They don’t need to be perfectly straight or of even widths. Set the strips aside.

For the jam-filled mummies, scoop 2 tablespoons of jam down the center of four of the dough rectangles. Spread the jam out, leaving a 1/8” border around the edges.

For the cinnamon-filled mummies, scoop about 1 tablespoon of the filling onto each of the remaining dough rectangles. Spread the filling, leaving a 1/8” border around the edges. (Save any leftover filling for a cinnamon toast treat.) 

Use a pastry brush (or your finger) to brush the egg wash on the bare edges of each rectangle.

Crisscross the mummy wrapping strips at different angles over the filling. Press them onto the egg-washed edges so they adhere. Leave space near the top of each mummy for the eyes, which will be added after baking. Trim away any excess dough from the edges. Lightly brush the tops of the wrapped mummies with melted butter.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Remove from oven and place baking sheet on a rack to cool. While the filling is still warm, add the candy eyeballs.

🎃 Happy Halloween! 🎃

 

 

 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on X or Instagram.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Muffins @MaddieDayAuthor #Halloween #giveaway

MADDIE DAY here with a yummy pre-trick-or-treating snack. When my sons were much younger, I always tried to get some kind of healthy, non-sweet early supper into them before they ventured out to collect massive amounts of candy. 

These muffins aren't too sweet, are fast to throw together, and can be eaten on the run. Plus, pumpkins are the essence of Halloween, aren't they?

Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients

The alert reader will notice I forgot to include rolled oats in the photo, but they are in the muffins!

Ingredients

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 ¾ cups whole wheat flour

⅓ cup old-fashioned oats

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup oil

½ cup maple syrup or honey

1 cup pumpkin purée

¼ cup milk

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a standard muffin tin.

Mix dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Break eggs into the dry mix and stir with a fork.

Add other wet ingredients and stir in with a fork until just mixed.

Spoon into the prepared muffin tin. Bake about 20 minutes until tops are golden brown. Cool on a wire rack, then remove from pan. 

Enjoy with your breakfast or as an afternoon snack! 

Readers: What's your favorite kind of muffin? Look, I found one more ARC of Deadly Crush to give away, and it even has an orange cover!

🍁🍂🍁

Murder at the Rusty Anchor is out and available wherever books are sold!

My other recent releases are A Case for the Ladies.

And Deep Fried Death, #12 in the Country Store Mysteries.

Murder Uncorked, Cece Barton Mystery #1, which released in late October in hardcover and is now in mass market paperback.

Check out all my writing:

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.