Feel the bowl with the butter. If you can cup your hands around it comfortably, you can add it to your mixing bowl now. Mix it in slowly at low speed. (You don’t want it to slosh all over!) If it’s still too warm to add, wait until it’s cooler and then do it.
Add the flour in half-cup increments, beating after each addition.
Take the bowl from the mixer and stir in one cup chocolate chips by hand.
Spread the batter evenly into a greased (or Pammed) 9-inch by 13-inch pan. Bake it at 350 degrees F. for 25
minutes or until it feels firm on the top.
Remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle it with the remaining two cups of chocolate chips. Immediately cover the pan with a piece of heavy-duty foil or a cookie sheet.
(That keeps the heat in.) Let it sit for three minutes. Then take off the cookie sheet, or foil, and spread out the melted chips like frosting with a rubber spatula or frosting knife.
Cool completely and then cut into brownie-sized pieces.
! % { # 9
150
Index of
! Recipes #
Peppermint Martini
14
Pepper Mint Martini
14
Lemon Whippersnappers
38
Regency Seed Cakes
52
Quiche Lorraine
64
Holiday Quiche
68
Christmas Date Cookies
79
Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies 90
Devil’s Food Cookies
103
Linda’s Pecan Shortbread Cookies 113
Angel Pillows
128
Candy Cane Bar Cookies
149
Baking Conversion Chart
These conversions are approximate, but they’ll work just fine for Hannah Swensen’s recipes.
VOLUME:
U.S.
Metric
1?2 teaspoon
2 milliliters
1 teaspoon
5 milliliters
1 tablespoon
15 milliliters
1?4 cup
50 milliliters
1?3 cup
75 milliliters
1?2 cup
125 milliliters
3?4 cup
175 milliliters
1 cup
1?4 liter
WEIGHT:
U.S.
Metric
1 ounce
28 grams
1 pound
454 grams
OVEN TEMPERATURE:
Degrees
Degrees
British (Regulo)
Fahrenheit
Centigrade
Gas Mark
325 degrees F.
165 degrees C.
3
350 degrees F.
175 degrees C.
4
375 degrees F.
190 degrees C.
5
Note: Hannah’s rectangular sheet cake pan, 9 inches by 13
inches, is approximately 23 centimeters by 32.5 centimeters.
THE DANGERS OF
CANDY CANES
Laura Levine
For my loyal theater companion and technical advisor, Michele Serchuk
Chapter
! One #
Ah, Christmas in Los Angeles. There’s nothing quite like it. Chestnuts roasting on an open hibachi. Jack Frost nipping at your frappucino. Santa in cutoffs and flipflops.
It’s hard to get in the holiday spirit when the closest you get to snow is the ice in your margarita, but I was trying.
On the day my story begins, I was attempting to take a picture of my cat Prozac for my holiday photo card. I thought it would be cute to get her to pose in a Santa hat.
Prozac, however, was not so keen on the idea. And I still have the scars to prove it.
The only holiday Prozac gets excited about is Let’s Claw A Pair of Pantyhose to Shreds Day. Not a national holiday, I know, but one celebrated quite often in my apartment.
I kept putting the Santa hat on her head, only to find it on the floor by the time I picked up my camera.
“Oh, Prozac!” I wailed after about the thirtieth try.
“What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you wear a simple Santa hat?”
She glared at me as if to say, I refuse to look like a fool for the amusement of your friends and relatives. I’ve got my dignity, you know.
This from a cat who’s been known to swan dive into the garbage for a chicken McNugget.
I was beginning to think E. Scrooge may have had the 158
Laura Levine
right idea about Christmas when the phone rang. I recognized the voice of Seymour Fiedler of Fiedler on the Roof Roofers, one of the not-so-long list of clients who use my services as a freelance writer.
“Jaine, you’ve got to come over to the shop right away.”
I wondered if he wanted me to punch up the Yellow Pages ad I’d just written for him. Although for the life of me I couldn’t see how I could possibly top Size Doesn’t Matter.
We Do Big Jobs and Small.
But he wasn’t calling about the Yellow Pages ad.
“I’m in big trouble,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m being accused of murder!”
Mild-mannered Seymour Fiedler, a man I’d never once heard utter an angry word, accused of murder? Impossible!
“Hang on, Seymour. I’ll be right over.”
I grabbed my car keys and headed for the door, just in time to see Prozac celebrating a whole new holiday—Let’s Poop on A Santa Hat Day.