Chocolate Cream Pie Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  Hannah’s Note: Pan Coat will work on any pan that needs to be greased and floured. (And it’s a lot easier than greasing it first, dumping in some flour, and then standing over the kitchen wastebasket trying to get the flour on every inside surface.

  ULTIMATE STRAWBERRY BUNDT CAKE

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

  4 large eggs

  ½ cup vegetable oil

  ½ cup strawberry liqueur (I used Drillaud Strawberry Liqueur)

  8-ounce (by weight) tub of sour cream (I used Knudson)

  1 Tablespoon strawberry jam

  box of Strawberry Cake Mix, the kind that makes a 9-inch by 13-inch cake or a 2-layer cake (I used Pillsbury)

  5.1-ounce package of DRY instant vanilla pudding and pie filling (I used Jell-O)

  12-ounce (by weight) bag of white chocolate or vanilla baking chips (11-ounce package will do, too—I used Nestlé)

  Prepare your cake pan. You’ll need a Bundt pan that has been sprayed with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray and then floured. To flour a pan, put some flour in the bottom, hold it over your kitchen wastebasket, and tap the pan to move the flour all over the inside of the pan. Continue this until all the inside surfaces of the pan, including the sides of the crater in the center, have been covered with a light coating of flour. Alternatively, you can coat the inside of the Bundt pan with Pam Baking Spray, which is a nonstick cooking spray with flour already in it or use Pan Coat.

  Crack the eggs into the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix them up on LOW speed until they’re a uniform color.

  Pour in the half-cup of vegetable oil and mix it in with the eggs on LOW speed.

  Add the half-cup of strawberry liqueur. Mix it in at LOW speed.

  Scoop out the container of sour cream and put it into a small bowl. Add the Tablespoon of strawberry jam and stir it in.

  Add the sour cream and strawberry jam mixture to your mixer bowl. Mix that in on LOW speed.

  When everything is well combined, open the box of dry cake mix and sprinkle it on top of the liquid ingredients in the bowl of the mixer. Mix that in on LOW speed.

  Open the package of instant vanilla pudding and pie filling and sprinkle in the contents. Mix it in on LOW speed.

  Shut off the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl, remove it from the mixer, and set it on the counter.

  If you have a food processor, put in the steel blade and pour in the white chocolate or vanilla baking chips. Process in an on-and-off motion to chop them in smaller pieces. (You can also do this with a knife on a cutting board if you don’t have a food processor.)

  Sprinkle the white chocolate or vanilla baking chips in your bowl and stir them in by hand with a rubber spatula.

  Hannah’s 1st Note: If you don’t want to use strawberry liqueur in this recipe, use whole milk or water with a little strawberry jam mixed in for flavoring.

  Hannah’s 2nd Note: The reason the white chips in this recipe are chopped in smaller pieces is that regular-size chips are larger and heavier, and they tend to sink down to the bottom of your Bundt pan.

  Use the rubber spatula to transfer the cake batter to the prepared Bundt pan.

  Smooth the top of your cake with the spatula and put it into the center of your preheated oven.

  Bake your Ultimate Strawberry Bundt Cake at 350 degrees F. for 55 minutes.

  Before you take your cake out of the oven, test it for doneness by inserting a cake tester, thin wooden skewer, or long toothpick. Insert it midway between outside edges of the pan and the metal protrusion that makes the crater in the center of the pan.

  If the tester comes out clean, your cake is done. If there is still unbaked batter clinging to the tester, shut the oven door and bake your cake for 5 minutes longer.

  Take your cake out of the oven and set it on a cold stove burner or a wire rack. Let it cool in the pan for 20 minutes and then pull the sides of the cake away from the pan with the tips of your impeccably clean fingers. Don’t forget to do the same for the sides of the crater in the middle.

  Tip the Bundt pan upside down on a platter and drop it gently on a folded towel on the kitchen counter. Do this until the cake falls out of the pan and rests on the platter.

  Cover your Ultimate Strawberry Bundt Cake loosely with foil and refrigerate it for at least 1 hour. Overnight is even better.

  Frost your cake with Cool Whip Strawberry Frosting. (Recipe and instructions follow.)

  Yield: At least 10 pieces of sweet and tasty strawberry cake. Serve with tall glasses of ice-cold milk or cups of strong coffee.

  COOL WHIP STRAWBERRY FROSTING

  This recipe is made in the microwave.

  1 heaping cup (6 to 7 ounces by weight) of white chocolate or vanilla baking chips (I used Nestlé chips)

  8-ounce (by weight) tub of FROZEN Cool Whip (Do not thaw! Leave in the freezer.)

  ½ teaspoon strawberry extract

  2 drops red food coloring, the liquid type

  Hannah’s 1st Note: Make sure you use the Original Cool Whip, not the sugar free or the real whipped cream.

  Hannah’s 2nd Note: If you use the gel food coloring, the color will be brighter and you may need less than 2 drops.

  Start by chopping your white chocolate or vanilla baking chips into smaller pieces or placing the chips in a food processor with the steel blade and processing in an on-and-off motion to chop the chips into smaller pieces.

  Get the Cool Whip out of your freezer and scoop it out. Place it in a microwave-safe bowl. (I used a quart Pyrex measuring cup.)

  Add the white chocolate or vanilla baking chips to the bowl.

  Microwave the bowl on HIGH for 1 minute and then let it sit in the microwave for an additional minute.

  Take the bowl out of the microwave and stir to see if the chips are melted. If they’re not, heat them in 30-second intervals with 30-second standing times on HIGH in the microwave until you succeed in melting the chips and stirring the mixture smooth.

  Put the microwave-safe bowl on a towel on your kitchen counter and add the ½ teaspoon strawberry extract.

  Add the 2 drops of red food coloring to your microwave-safe bowl.

  Stir the mixture to combine everything.

  Look at the color of your frosting. If it’s a nice pink, you’re done. If the color is too light, add more food coloring and stir it in until your frosting is the desired color.

  Let the bowl sit on the countertop for 15 minutes to thicken the frosting.

  When the time is up, give the bowl a stir and remove your cake from the refrigerator. Frost your Ultimate Strawberry Bundt Cake with the frosting and don’t forget the sides of the crater in the middle. You don’t need to frost all the way down to the bottom of the crater. That’s almost impossible. Just frost an inch or so down the sides of the crater.

  Hannah’s 3rd Note: You can decorate the top of your cake with fresh strawberries cut in half, cut side down, if you wish. If you are baking this cake for Valentine’s Day, you can decorate the top of your cake with the little pastel-colored hearts that have sayings on them.

  Return your cake to the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before cutting it and serving it to your guests.

  Hannah’s 4th Note: You can also use this frosting on cookies. Simply frost and let your cookies sit on wax paper on the kitchen counter until the frosting has set and is dry to the touch.

  Yield: This frosting will frost a Bundt Cake, a batch of cookies, a 9-inch by 13-inch cake, or a round two-tier layer cake.

  Chapter Three

  It didn’t take very long for Hannah’s cake to fill the condo with a mouthwatering aroma. Hannah smiled as she realized that her mood had improved dramatically. The storm, which was now officially categorized as a blizzard, continued to rage outside, but Hannah knew that she was in no danger. She had plenty of food in the pantry, her electricity would not fail for more than a few seconds, thanks to the generator in the garage that served all four units in her building, and her cable television would
continue to operate. When her condo complex was built, all the utilities had been run underground. It had been one of the selling points that Al Percy, their local real-estate agent, had mentioned when he’d shown Hannah and Delores the condo.

  Rayne Phillips, Dee Dee Hughes, and Chuck Wilson were still warning viewers about the “blizzard of the century.” Hannah picked up the remote control and switched to one of the movie channels included in her cable package. The channel was running a romance movie, and that was the last thing she needed to see. Her romance, along with her marriage to Ross, had turned to ashes.

  A sigh escaped, unbidden, from Hannah’s throat. If things had turned out differently, she would be sitting here on the comfortable leather couch with her loving husband. Then a blizzard would be just another adventure, a welcome excuse to stay home and be with each other.

  The memories of her time with Ross began to surface. She’d made him hot chocolate the way he loved it, with a scoop of marshmallow fluff sprinkled with cinnamon on top. They had cuddled up together in this very spot, sipping from their mugs and laughing at the marshmallow mustaches that both of them had worn as they drank.

  Hannah roused herself from the happy memory. Thinking about the good times would only make her wish that things could be different. It was time to face reality. Things couldn’t be different, not anymore. The situation was not salvageable. Ross had abandoned her and gone back to his wife. Memories of their romance had no place in her life. She had loved him with all her heart, but now that she knew the truth, her love had turned to a darker emotion. Ross had betrayed her. He’d lied and played her for a fool. She had to harden her heart against him.

  Hannah’s living room window rattled with each gust of wind, and all she could see was a sheet of shifting, swirling white outside. Normally, she could see Marguerite and Clara Hollenbeck’s living room window from hers, but the visibility was down to only inches outside. The escalating storm suited Hannah’s mood perfectly. Her very soul felt icy cold. Ross was out of her life forever and she couldn’t let herself miss him.

  The questions that plagued her sleepless nights emerged with the howling of the wind. Had there been warning signs that she should have spotted? Should she have insisted on a longer engagement so that she could find out more about Ross’s life during the time they’d been apart? Was she a fool for missing him so dreadfully, even now?

  There was a knock, a very loud knock that successfully competed with the howling wind. Hannah moved Moishe to another cushion, sprang to her feet, and rushed across the room to the door. “Who is it?” she asked, shouting to compete with the cacophony of the storm.

  “It’s Norman! I’ve got Cuddles with me! Let us in, Hannah! Another couple minutes out here and she’s going to turn into a cat-sicle!”

  Hannah opened the door to a snow-covered figure carrying a snow-covered cat carrier. She helped Norman in, took his parka the moment he shrugged it off his shoulders, and dodged the orange-and-white blur that jumped off the couch with a thud and raced to see his favorite kitty friend.

  “Ready?” Norman asked, preparing to pull up the grate on the cat carrier to let his pet out of confinement.

  “Rrowww!” Moishe replied, and both Hannah and Norman laughed.

  “That says it all!” Hannah remarked. “Go ahead, Norman.”

  Norman pulled up the grate, Cuddles shot out like a rocket, and the kitty-derby down the carpeted hallway to the bedroom was on with Moishe in the lead and Cuddles chasing him.

  “Feet up!” Hannah said, hurrying to the couch with Norman following suit. Once there, both Hannah and Norman tucked their feet under them and waited a scant second before they heard the sound of the two cats racing back into the living room.

  Both Hannah and Norman knew that the derby consisted of three laps, from the bedroom out to the living room and back again. They counted them off, one by one, and after the third lap Hannah asked, “Are they through?”

  “I’m not sure,” Norman replied. “Cuddles still has that crazed look in her eyes. She might be getting ready for one more lap.”

  “If she is, Moishe will go for it. He’s panting, but he’ll chase her if she . . . oops!” Hannah drew her feet up quickly. “Feet up, Norman! They’re off and running!”

  Norman laughed and lifted his feet as the two cats ran past him. Then he turned to Hannah with a puzzled expression. “What smells so good?”

  “Ultimate Strawberry Bundt Cake. If it’s good, we’re going to bake it for Valentine’s Day.”

  “If it tastes as good as it smells, it’ll be great.”

  There was the sound of a timer ringing and Hannah got up from the couch. “I have to test the cake,” she told him. “If it’s done, I’ll take it out of the oven. I’ll be right back.”

  “With cake?”

  “Not quite yet. It has to cool for twenty minutes in the Bundt pan before I can put it on a plate.”

  “That long?”

  Hannah smiled. “That long. Patience is a virtue, Norman.”

  “Patients are what I have in my dental chair every day,” Norman corrected her.

  Hannah was saved from attempting to come up with a clever reply when her stove timer began to beep again. “That’s my second warning,” she told him. “If I don’t shut that off, it’ll beep steadily until I do.”

  Norman sighed. “Then I guess I’ll have to practice the other kind of patience.”

  Hannah chuckled all the way to the kitchen. She loved Norman’s ability to come up with the perfect rejoinder in a lot less time than it took for most people.

  Once she’d shut off the timer, Hannah tested the cake, decided that it was done, and set it on a cold stove top burner. Then she reset the time for twenty minutes, the length of time it would take it to cool, and went back to the kitchen doorway.

  “I’ve got Chicken in Cabernet Sauce in the Crock-Pot,” she told Norman. “I put it up this morning before I left for church and it should be almost ready by now. I was going to freeze it because I planned to go out to dinner with the family tonight, but we can eat it tonight. It’ll take me a few minutes to thicken the broth, but would you like some when that’s done?”

  “You betcha!”

  Norman’s answer came immediately in Minnesota vernacular, and Hannah smiled. Despite Norman’s years in dental school and the time he’d spent practicing at a large clinic in Seattle, he was still a Minnesotan at heart.

  The aroma that escaped when Hannah lifted the lid on her slow cooker was enticing and her mouth began to water in anticipation. She heard the sound of footsteps behind her and she turned to smile at Norman.

  “That really smells good, Hannah,” Norman said, crossing the kitchen floor to look at the contents of the Crock-Pot. “There’s a whole meal in there! It must have been a lot of work to make it.”

  Hannah shook her head. “It wasn’t, not really. The slow cooker does most of the work while you’re doing something else. All you have to do is remember to turn it on before you leave the house. You could do this, Norman. And then you’d have a hot meal waiting for you when you got home. It’s so simple, even Mike could do it and he never cooks for himself.”

  “I don’t think he ever does,” Norman said, and then he began to smile. “And speaking of Mike, I’m surprised he’s not here yet.”

  “So am I,” Hannah admitted. “Just give him a little time, Norman. He’ll probably show up just after I set the table.”

  “You’re right,” Norman agreed, acknowledging Mike’s uncanny knack for arriving at Hannah’s doorstep right before she was planning to serve dinner.

  Just then there was a loud thump on Hannah’s door, and they exchanged amused glances.

  “That’s probably him now,” Norman said, heading for the door. “I’ll let him in.”

  Hannah finished adjusting the seasonings and thickening the broth. Then she clamped the lid on the Crock-Pot and went to greet Mike. But it wasn’t just Mike. When she emerged from the kitchen, she saw that Noman was taking parka
s from Michelle, Lonnie, and Mike.

  “How did you get through all this snow?” she asked Mike, draping their snow-covered parkas over several chairs.

  “Carrie and Earl stopped by Mother’s place,” Michelle explained. “Earl wanted to make sure that Doc had made it home from the hospital. And when Earl saw us, he offered to lead us here in his snowplow.”

  Hannah began to frown. “Didn’t you invite them in?”

  “Of course we did,” Mike reassured her, “but they said they had to move on. Carrie managed to get through to Edna Fergusson at the farm and Earl promised to plow her driveway.”

  “I wish you’d told them to wait until I could give them a thermos of hot coffee.”

  Lonnie shook his head. “They’ve got plenty. Carrie brought three thermoses, and your mother gave her another one filled with hot chocolate.”

  “Carrie was having the time of her life in that snowplow,” Mike told Hannah. “She said that Earl let her drive and only took over when she dumped a load of snow on Mayor Bascomb’s sidewalk by mistake.”