Cover your bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for 2 hours. (Overnight is fine, too.)
Once your cookie dough has chilled and you’re ready to bake, take the bowl out of the refrigerator.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
While your oven is preheating, prepare your cookie sheets by either spraying them with Pam or another cooking spray or lining them with parchment paper.
Roll the Chocolate Mint Cookie dough into walnut-sized balls with your impeccably clean hands.
Working one dough ball at a time, roll the dough balls in the bowl of white sugar and place the balls on your prepared cookie sheets, 12 to a standard sheet.
Hannah’s 4th Note: This dough may be sticky, so roll only enough cookie dough balls for the cookies you plan to bake immediately and return the bowl to the refrigerator.
Flatten the dough balls a bit with a metal spatula (or with the heel of your hand if the health board’s not around).
Press one Peppermint Pattie in the center of each cookie.
Bake your cookies at 350 degrees F. for 10 minutes.
Take your cookie sheets out of the oven and cool the cookies on their cookie sheets for 1 to 2 minutes.
When the cookies have cooled for a bit, use a metal spatula to transfer the cookies to metal cooling racks on your counter. If you leave them on the cookie sheets for too long, they may stick and fall apart when you try to transfer them.
Hannah’s 5th Note: If you used parchment paper, let the cookies cool on the cookie sheets a bit and then pull the parchment paper, cookies and all, over to the cooling racks. (Don’t forget to use oven mitts or pot holders to do this! Metal cookie sheets take longer than 1 or 2 minutes to cool enough to handle with your bare hands.)
Yield: 4 to 5 dozen deliciously minty cookies that everyone who enjoys chocolate-covered mints will love.
Hannah’s 6th Note: Chocolate Mint Cookies are a big favorite at The Cookie Jar, especially around the Christmas season. Be sure, however, to serve them with tall glasses of icy cold milk, cups of strong coffee, or mugs of hot chocolate.
FROZEN SUGARED GRAPES
1 bunch green seedless grapes 1 bunch red seedless grapes 1 cup Prosecco or champagne
1 cup tequila or vodka
? cup white (granulated) sugar (variable – you may need to add additional sugar)
Hannah’s 1st Note: You can make several batches of both kinds of grapes with this recipe, as many as you need for your party. Just save the marinating liquid for the next batch. It will work for up to 4 batches without losing its oomph. And yes, oomph is a culinary term!
Choose a bunch of green seedless grapes that has grapes that are plump and fresh. You can make this recipe with 2 bunches of green seedless grapes or 1 bunch of green and 1 bunch of red seedless grapes, or 2 bunches of red seedless grapes.
Prepare your freezing pans by making sure the pan size you choose has sides that will keep the grapes from rolling off and that it will fit in your freezer. (Don’t laugh – the first time I made these, I used a baking sheet with sides that were too wide to fit in my freezer at the condo!)
Remove the grapes from their stems and wash them under cold, running water. (This is easier to do if you use a colander or a large strainer.)
Pat the grapes dry with paper towels.
Fill a large, shallow bowl with 1 cup of Prosecco or champagne and 1 cup of tequila or vodka. Mix them together with a whisk.
Leave the liquor mixture and the grapes on the kitchen counter at room temperature.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: If you have too many grapes in your bowl and the liquor mixture doesn’t cover them, simply add additional amounts of each liquid to completely cover the grapes.
Hannah’s 3rd Note: I used champagne and vodka when I made these grapes for Stephanie Bascomb and Mother.
Let the grapes marinate in the liquor mixture for 1 hour. (Longer is okay but don’t let the liquor evaporate.)
Once the grapes have marinated in the liquor mixture for at least 1 hour, fill a shallow bowl with white (granulated) sugar and roll the grapes in the bowl, one by one.
Hannah’s 4th Note: If you’re making several batches of grapes, you may need to add more white granulated sugar to your bowl. If the sugar gets sticky and doesn’t adhere to the grapes any longer or sticks to them in clumps, just dump out the sugar, rinse and thoroughly dry the bowl, and put in fresh sugar.
As you roll the grapes in the white sugar, place them on the pan you’ve chosen with a small space separating them from touching each other.
Once the pan is full of sugared grapes, place it in your freezer in a nice flat space and let the grapes freeze overnight.
In the morning, get out a freezer bag, pluck the frozen grapes off the freezing sheet, and place them in the bag. Seal the bag, place it back in the freezer, and proceed marinating and freezing more grapes if you’ve chosen to make more than 2 bunches.
Serve these grapes frozen. They’re very refreshing on a hot, summer day and a great addition to a barbecue or a pool party.
Hannah’s 5th Note: Be careful with these grapes! They taste delicious, but if you’ve marinated them for a long time, they can pack a real wallop!
Chapter Eight
Of course Stephanie Bascomb had loved the grapes. And Hannah had assumed the duty of driving her home after Stephanie had consumed a second bottle of Perrier Jouet. Unfortunately, Hannah still didn’t know whether Lynne and Tom were coming to Lake Eden for the Minnesota Movie Festival because they hadn’t yet called Mayor Bascomb to reply to the invitation.
“Did you find out if Lynne and Tom are coming?” Michelle asked, greeting Hannah as she came in the back door of The Cookie Jar.
“No. Their names weren’t on Stephanie’s list, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not coming. I’ll try calling Lynne again tonight to see if I can reach her.”
“Good. I’d like to see her again.” Michelle hurried toward the oven as the stove timer rang. “I’d better get the cakes out before they get too dry.”
“What are you baking?”
“Lisa’s Pink Grapefruit Cake. She told me that it was one of Lois Brown’s recipes and she mixed up the batter before they got busy in the coffee shop. I volunteered to bake her cakes and glaze them for her.”
“Lisa mentioned she’d made Pink Grapefruit Cake during the blizzard. I wonder where she found pink grapefruit at this time of year. I meant to ask her this morning, but I forgot.”
“The same thing occurred to me and I asked her.” Michelle removed the cakes from the oven, set them on the baker’s rack, and turned back to Hannah. “Someone sent Lisa and Herb a package of pink grapefruit from Florida a couple of days before the blizzard hit us. Lisa and Herb had pink grapefruit for breakfast twice, but Lisa realized that they wouldn’t be able to eat all of them before they spoiled. Rather than taking that chance, she zested them, juiced them, and froze the zest and the juice.”
“That makes sense,” Hannah said. “Lisa’s very thrifty. Was she thinking about the recipe she had for the Pink Grapefruit Cake?”
“Yes, and that’s why she did it. And now we don’t have to worry about finding pink grapefruit for Valentine’s Day. Lisa says she’s got enough ingredients for at least two dozen Pink Grapefruit Cakes and Pink Grapefruit Glaze in her freezer.”
“Hannah?” Lisa stuck her head in the kitchen. “There’s a phone call for you. It’s Lynne Larchmont.”
Hannah hurried to the phone and she was smiling as she picked it up. “Lynne! Are you coming here for the film festival?”