DEVIL’S FOOD COOKIES
Do not preheat oven—this dough
needs to chill.
2 cups flour
13?4 cups white (granulated) sugar
1?2 cup cocoa powder ***
1?2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1?2 cup melted butter (1 stick, 1/4 pound) 1 beaten egg (just whip it up in a glass with a fork) 1?2 cup extra strong coffee (I brewed French Roast double strength)
1?2 cup white sugar in a small bowl (for later) *** A Word of Warning about COCOA
When cocoa is used in any of my recipes, make sure to use plain old American cocoa (I usually use Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa.) There are many designer cocoas on the market. They’re wonderful in their own right, but they won’t work in my recipes. Make sure you don’t buy cocoa mix, which has powdered milk and a sweetener added.
Stay away from Dutch process cocoa—it has alkaline added. Also beware of cocoas that are mixed with ground chocolate or other flavorings. They won’t work either.
Things were simpler in my grandmother’s day (and this Devil’s Food Cookie is one of her recipes.) If you’re in doubt, check the ingredients that are listed on the container of cocoa. It should say “cocoa” and nothing else.
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In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. Once these dry ingredients are combined, add the melted butter and mix thoroughly.
Add the beaten egg and mix thoroughly.
Add the strong coffee and mix thoroughly.
Chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least one hour .
(Overnight is fine, too.)
When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
Roll the dough into one-inch diameter balls with your hands. This dough may be sticky, so roll only enough for the cookies you plan to bake immediately and then return the bowl to the refrigerator. Roll the dough balls in the bowl of white sugar and place them on a greased cookie sheet, 12 balls to a standard sheet. Flatten them slightly with the heel of your impeccably clean hand so they won’t roll off on their way to the oven.
Bake at 350 degrees F. for 8 to 10 minutes. Cool on the cookie sheet for a minute or two and then remove the cookies to a wire rack to finish cooling. (If you leave them on the cookie sheet for too long, they’ll stick.) Hannah’s Note: When Lisa wants to make these fancy for a cookie catering job, she drizzles them with fine hori— zontal lines of white powdered sugar icing. Then she mixes up chocolate powdered sugar icing and drizzles them with fine vertical lines. Here are the frostings she uses: ! % { # 9
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White Powdered Sugar Icing:
1 cup powdered (confectioner’s) sugar 1?2 teaspoon vanilla
1?4 teaspoon salt
2 to 4 Tablespoons light cream
Lisa’s 1st Note: There’s no need to sift the powdered sugar unless it has big lumps.
Line up your cookies, shoulder to shoulder, on a sheet of waxed paper.
Mix the powdered sugar with the vanilla and the salt.
Add the light cream gradually until the frosting is the consistency you want.
Put the frosting into a plastic food storage bag. Twist the top closed and cut off one of the bottom corners to let out the frosting. Squeeze it out and drizzle it in fine lines over your cookies.
Chocolate Powdered Sugar Icing:
1 cup powdered (confectioner’s) sugar 1?4 cup cocoa
1?2 teaspoon vanilla
1?4 teaspoon salt
3 to 6 Tablespoons light cream
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Turn the paper with the partially frosted cookies 90 degrees so that the thin lines of chocolate frosting will crisscross the white frosting.
Mix the powdered sugar with the cocoa. Blend it in until the resulting mixture is a uniform color. Add the vanilla and the salt. Add the light cream gradually until the chocolate frosting is the consistency you want.
Put the chocolate frosting into a plastic food storage bag. Twist the top closed and cut off one of the bottom corners to let out the frosting. Squeeze it out and drizzle it in fine lines over your cookies.
Let the frosting dry thoroughly and then pack the cookies in single layers in a box lined with wax paper.
Lisa’s 2nd Note: If you want to be really fancy, you can make powdered sugar icing with food coloring and use other extracts besides vanilla.
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Chapter
! Nine #
“It was all speculation,” Lisa answered Hannah’s query when they got back to The Cookie Jar, “but there was one interesting thing.”
“And that was?” Hannah prompted.
“Carrie thinks Jenny Bergstrom was in the family way when she left Lake Eden.”
Norman raised his eyebrows. “My mother actually said, in the family way?”
“Yes.” Lisa turned to Hannah. “And your mother said, No way, Jose. Dream on.”
Norman gave a huge sigh, but Hannah noticed that his eyes were twinkling. “I always suspected it, but now I know it’s true.”
“What’s true?” Hannah asked.
“Your mother is cooler than my mother.”
Lisa cracked up, and both Hannah and Norman turned to look at her.
“Sorry,” she said, still giggling. “It’s not cooler anymore.
Now it’s rad, or phat, or something like that. It changes every month, or so. The only way you can keep up is to watch the sitcoms on television.”
Hannah turned to Norman and gave him a little pat on the arm. “It’s okay. I knew exactly what you meant.”
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Joanne Fluke
“Vernacular aside, do you think my mother knew what she was talking about?” Norman asked Lisa.
“She seemed pretty sure of herself.” Lisa turned to Hannah. “And she managed to convince your mother.”
“If she convinced Mother, it’s probably true.”
“Jenny left town before she started to gain weight, or anything. And she never said anything about it in her letters to her friends in Lake Eden.”
“Okay.” Hannah got up to pour more coffee for all of them. Marge and Jack were still manning the shop and they had a little time to talk. “What else did Carrie say?”
“She said she almost came right out and asked Jenny, but then she heard about the divorce and she thought she must be wrong.”
“Why?” Hannah was curious.
“Because Wayne always wanted children and he would have forgotten all about marrying the bimbo, ” Lisa glanced at Norman, “your mother’s word, not mine, and gone straight back to Jenny if she’d told him that she was pregnant.”
“Oh, boy!” Norman gave a little groan. “The one thing I always loved about Lake Eden was that it could never be featured on a reality show. But now … I’m not so sure.”
Hannah laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Gossip in a small town isn’t that interesting unless you live there, and Dancing with the Bovines won’t make it. Unless they decide to hold the summer Olympics on Winnie Henderson’s farm, Lake Eden doesn’t have a prayer of being on national television.”
“Hey, Hannah.”
Mike strode in shortly after Norman had left and Hannah’s heart began to beat like a trip hammer. Why did he have this effect on her? She wished she could control it, but that sudden breathlessness and leap in blood pressure seemed to be eons beyond the control of biofeedback.
“Mike,” Hannah replied, pouring two mugs of coffee CANDY CANE MURDER
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from the kitchen pot while her hand was still steady. “Would you like a couple of Linda’s Shortbread Pecan Cookies?”
“Who’s Linda?”
“Lisa’s cousin. She sent us the recipe.”
“Sure, I’ll try a couple. I promise I’ll never refuse anything you offer me. You can count on that.”
Mike gave her a devilish grin and Hannah almost didn’t make it to the work island with the mugs of coffee intact. He was implying a lot more than he should, but she didn’t really dare to react. If she accused him of a suggestive comment, he’d act all innocent and tell her it was all in her head.
“Hold on and I’ll get a plate of cookies,” she said, setting the coffee down on the work island and never quite meeting his eyes.
It didn’t take long to fill a plate with cookies and put them down in front of Mike. Hannah waited until he’d eaten two and washed them down with a whole mug of coffee. Then she got up to pour them more. “So how did you like them?”
she asked, sitting down across from him once more.
“Great! Cover them with a napkin or something, will you, Hannah? Otherwise I’m going to eat them all.”
“You’re going back out to the sheriff’s department, aren’t you?”
“Right after I leave here.”
“Mother picked up something for Bill and she doesn’t want him to hang it in his closet at home. She’s afraid Tracey will see it and stop believing in Santa Claus.”
“I take it it’s a Santa costume?”
“Bingo. She bought it this morning at Bergstrom’s.”
“No problem. I’ll take it out there and hang it in Bill’s closet.”
Hannah waited, but Mike didn’t say anything else. The man was a genius when it came to holding his tongue. They sat there in silence for the space of a half-cup of coffee and then Hannah caved in.
“How’s the investigation going?” she asked.
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