by Isis Crawford

This week we have another fun recipe from a Kensington cozy mystery, this one from Isis Crawford’s book A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange. Enjoy the recipe for Christmas Fruit Drops, check out the synopsis of the book, and enter to win a copy of A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange! In this same issue we also have another recipe, this one from the Gingerbread Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke, Laura Levine and Leslie Meier, and a giveaway of that book as well.

A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange by Isis Crawford

Synopsis:

Christmas is Bernie and Libby’s busiest time of the year at A Little Taste of Heaven catering company. The last thing they need is to judge a contest for the best Christmas cookie for the TV show Baking for Life, especially when the contestants are the uber-competitive ladies of the Christmas Cookie Club Exchange.

Then someone goes and kills Millie Piedmont and all hell breaks loose. Which of the Cookie Club ladies finished her off – and stole the pan of Millie’s Magnificent Meltaways? Bernie and Libby have to make sure a killer gets her just desserts, but it won’t be easy with the club members harboring so many unsavory secrets…

Christmas Fruit Drops

Taken from A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange by Isis Crawford

The following recipe is from Carmel Ruffo, an excellent and prolific baker. Like my grandmother, she cooks by eye, taste, and smell. But luckily for us, unlike my grandmother she also writes things down.

1 cup shortening
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk
3 2/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 2/3 cups broken pecans
2 cups candied cherries, halved
2 cups dates, cut into very small pieces
Pecan halves

Mix shortening, sugar, and eggs. Stir in buttermilk. Blend together all dry ingredients. Add to wet ones. Stir in pecans, cherries, and dates. Chill dough for at least an hour.

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough 2 inches apart on a lightly greased baking sheet. Place a pecan half on top of each cookie. Bake 8 to 10 minutes.
Makes 8 dozen cookies.

To enter to win a copy of A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “cookie,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen December 12, 2015. U.S. residents only. If entering via email please include your mailing address, and if via comment please include your email address.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & short stories in our mystery section.