by Anna Meriano
INGREDIENTS
FOR DOUGH
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
5 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
Gel food coloring
FOR INSIDES AND ASSEMBLING
½ cup powdered sugar (for frosting)
2 teaspoons milk (for frosting)
Mini M&M’s candies
DIRECTIONS
Cream together the granulated sugar, the powdered sugar, and the butter. Then beat in the eggs and add the oil.
Combine all the dry ingredients—flour, baking soda, salt—together and add them slowly to the mixture. Add the vanilla and almond extracts.
Remove the dough from the mixer and let it sit for a few minutes to tighten. Split the dough into five balls of the same size and one smaller ball. Add your favorite food coloring to each dough ball. Make the smallest ball black. Add enough food coloring to each ball to make the color strong and rich.
Use a deep rectangular container roughly the size of your cookie cutter and line it with plastic wrap. Split in half all your balls except the black one. Layer the dough in the container starting with the black dough. Alternate one of each color, pressing down one layer after another, and make sure you have two layers of each color. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and freeze it overnight or for at least five hours.
Remove the dough from the freezer, uncover it, remove it from the container, and unwrap it from the plastic covering. Cut down through the layers, creating striped slices approximately ¼ inch wide, with the black layer on the bottom.
Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 350 degrees for 11 minutes.
While the cookies are baking, make the frosting: Mix together ½ cup of powdered sugar and 2 teaspoons of milk. Place in a plastic Ziploc bag and cut off one of the corners to make your own piping bag.
As soon as the cookies are taken from the oven, use your cookie cutter to make the shapes. Each pinata will be three cookies stacked together, creating a three-dimensional figure!
Take your cookie cutter and cut two cookies in one direction and one cookie in the opposite direction by flipping the cookie cutter. This will make sure that when you assemble your piñata cookie, the baked sides (the sides that were browned by the baking sheet) are on the inside of the pinata. Take one of the three cookies and make a rectangular cut in the center. This is the pocket where the M&M’s will go. Place the cookies on a rack to cool.
After they’ve cooled, take the first piñata cookie and lay it upside down so that the baked bottom is facing you. Draw around the edge of the cookie with the frosting mixture, which will help the cookies to stick together. Next, stack the cookie with the hole in it, and add the M&M’s to the open pocket. Put another line of frosting glue on the middle cookie.
Finally, place the last piñata cookie—the one facing the other way—on top (so the baked side is on the bottom) to conceal the M&M’s inside. Let these sit and harden for at least 40 minutes before you stand them upright.
CAROLINE’S CINNAMONY CHURROS
Makes about 16 cinnamon-sugar churros. Be sure to dunk and dip.
INGREDIENTS
FOR DOUGH
1 cup water
6 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
Vegetable oil (for frying)
A bowl of cinnamon and sugar
FOR CHOCOLATE DIPPING SAUCE
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup dark chocolate chips
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
DIRECTIONS
In a large pan over medium heat, combine water, butter, and sugar. Bring to a bubbly boil and add vanilla extract. Stir. Turn off the heat and add flour and salt. Stir with a wooden spoon until it turns thick. That will take about 30 seconds. Let the mixture cool for about 12 minutes.
Beat the eggs into the cooled mixture one at a time. Don’t rush! Let it all combine. Transfer the mixture to a piping bag with a large star tip.
Using a large pot over medium heat, place enough vegetable oil to come halfway up the sides of the pot and heat to 375 degrees. Hold the piping bag a couple of inches above the oil and carefully pipe churros into 6-inch ropes. Use kitchen scissors to cut off the dough after it leaves the piping bag.
Fry for about 4–5 minutes or until golden. You can fry 3 or 4 churros at a time, but be sure to allow the oil to come back up to temperature for each batch. Remove churros with tongs and immediately roll them in the bowl of cinnamon and sugar.
To make the chocolate dipping sauce, pour heavy cream into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Place chocolate chips in a medium glass bowl, and pour hot cream over top of them. Let sit for two minutes, then add cinnamon and salt and whisk to combine.
Serve the warm churros with the chocolate dipping sauce.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It’s actually surreal to be writing my third set of acknowledgments. After you go through the publishing thing a few times, it’s tempting to start taking the process for granted. It’s not granted. Every single book is a miracle of collaboration, so I want to thank all the collaborators who made this one possible.
Thank you first and foremost to all the readers. There would be no book three without y’all. Extra bonus Brownie points to the teachers, librarians, and booksellers who have supported and promoted the Love Sugar Magic series from day one.
Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra, Victoria Marini, and the whole Cake Literary family, thank you for giving me the chance and the platform to tell these stories. I still can’t believe my good luck.
Thanks to my editor, Jordan Brown, who has been such a source of support with both the writing and the other author stuff, and who appreciated all the weird parts of this book.
Thanks to Debbie Kovacs, empress of important things at Walden Pond Press, for all the promotional and moral support.
Thanks to all the folks at HarperCollins and Walden Pond Press who worked on the design, editing, marketing, publicity, important emails, and other miscellaneous tasks to get the book out.
Thanks to Patricia Nelson, my agent, who’s helping me plot all my next steps.
Thanks to Mirelle Ortega for once again creating a breathtaking cover. I love everything about it, and you.
Thanks to the writing folks who have been there with helpful tips, sympathetic ears, signal boosts, and virtual hugs. Especially thanks to Las Musas, who are all amazing authors and dedicated supporters of Latinx kidlit.
Thanks to my Rice friends who help me with general freak-outs, my New School friends who help me with writing freak-outs, and my quidditch friends who help me get out of the house and stop freaking out once in a while. Thanks to Ariel for being the first line of defense for all freak-outs and for always checking my Spanish.
Finally, thanks so much my to my family for everything. The constant support and advice and interest and food. It’s not a coincidence that the Logroño family is so loving.
(Special shoutout to my brothers and boy cousins, who had to wait until the third book to see any male relative representation.)
Y’all are all superstars, and this series is yours.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Rita Meriano
ANNA MERIANO is the author of the first two books in the Love Sugar Magic series, A Dash of Trouble and A Sprinkle of Spirits. She grew up in Houston, Texas, and earned her MFA in creative writing with an emphasis in writing for children from the New School in New York. She has taught creative writing and high school English, and she works as a writing tutor. Anna likes reading, knitting, playing full-contact quidditch, and singing alo
ng to songs in English, Spanish, and ASL. Her favorite baked goods are the kind that open hearts. You can visit her online at www.annameriano.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY ANNA MERIANO
Love Sugar Magic: A Dash of Trouble
Love Sugar Magic: A Sprinkle of Spirits
COPYRIGHT
When cooking, it is important to keep safety in mind. Children should always ask permission from an adult before cooking and should be supervised by an adult in the kitchen at all times. The publisher and author disclaim any liability from any injury that might result from the use, proper or improper, of the recipes contained in this book.
Walden Pond Press is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Walden Pond Press and the skipping stone logo are trademarks and registered trademarks of Walden Media, LLC.
LOVE SUGAR MAGIC: A MIXTURE OF MISCHIEF. Text copyright © 2020 by Anna Meriano. Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Mirelle Ortega. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
COVER ART © 2020 BY MIRELLE ORTEGA
LOGO DESIGN BY JESSIE GANG
COVER DESIGN BY SARAH NICHOLE KAUFMAN
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Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-291592-4
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-291590-0
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1920212223PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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