Christmas in Christmas Town
It wouldn’t be Christmas without cookies.
The town of Rudolph, New York is the setting for Vicki Delany’s Year Round Christmas mysteries. The third book Hark the Herald Angels Slay will be released on November 28.
Rudolph wants to be known as America’s Christmas Town and, in the first book in the series, Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen to the delight of the townsfolk a reporter for a big European travel magazine is in town to write an article on them. Excitement is high at the semi-annual (yes, they have two a year) post-Santa Claus parade reception in the town hall. The party is being catered by Vicky Casey, owner and chief baker of Victoria’s Bake Shoppe. Vicky’s gingerbread is rapidly becoming a Rudolph institution as is her ginger cake and hot chocolate with ginger tonic. Also prominent at the party are Vicky’s special Molasses Spice cookies.
Too bad someone slipped poison into the special cookie Vicky made for the special guest.
Vicki Delany’s Molasses spice cookies (poison not included)
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 3/4 cup (6 oz) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup molasses
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. In a shallow bowl, place 1/2 cup sugar; set aside.
With an electric mixer, beat butter and remaining cup of sugar until combined. Beat in egg and then molasses until combined. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in dry ingredients, just until a dough forms.
Pinch off and roll dough into balls, each equal to 1 tablespoon. Roll balls in reserved sugar to coat.
Arrange balls on baking sheets, about 3 inches apart. Bake, one sheet at a time, until edges of cookies are just firm, 10 to 15 minutes (cookies can be baked two sheets at a time, but they will not crackle uniformly). Cool 1 minute on baking sheets; transfer to racks to cool completely.
Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than twenty-five books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She writes the Sherlokc Holmes Bookshop series and, under the name of Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library cozy series. Her newest novel is Hark the Herald Angels Slay, the third Year-Round Christmas Mystery from Penguin Random House.
Vicki lives and writes in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario. She is the past president of the Crime Writers of Canada. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards.
Find Vicki at www.vickidelany.com. Twitter @vickidelany or Facebook: evagatesauthor
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