Yule Be Sorry--A Christmas Cozy Mystery (With Dragons)
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1 tsp baking soda
250mL / 1 cup sour cream
175 g / 1¼ cups chopped dates
300 g / 2 cups raisins
60 g / 1/3 cup(ish) chopped glazed cherries (Me: Mick! Ew! You said this was nice! Mick: Jeez. Fine. Use dried cranberries)
125 g / 1 cup chopped walnuts
240 g / 1½ cups flour
115 g / 4 oz butter
200 g / 1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 ½ tsp vanilla
Grated rind of one orange
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp grated nutmeg
Brandy (optional)
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Preheat oven to 160C/325F. Line a 23 x 13cm loaf tin with baking paper.
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Combine sour cream and baking soda; set aside.
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Combine dried fruit and nuts, then toss with about ¼ cup of flour. Set aside. (Me: Mick, is this a way to find out how many bowls we own?)
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Beat butter and sugar until fluffy, then mix in egg. Follow with orange rind, vanilla, and finally the sour cream mix. Add flour, salt, and spices, stir to combine, then finally add the fruit and nuts.
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Pour into prepared loaf tin and pop in the oven. Add a separate pan of water to the oven, either beneath or beside the loaf, because magic. (Mick: Not magic. Even cooking. Me: I know. Magic. Mick: shakes head.)
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Bake for about an hour and a half, or until a skewer comes out clean. You may need to top up the magic water during baking.
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Eat immediately or wrap tightly to store. If storing, you might want to sprinkle it with a bit of brandy to keep it moist and enhance the flavour.
Mocha Yule Log
While the Yule Log didn’t feature in Yule Be Sorry, it obviously should have. However, it’s less an afternoon tea dish, and more a beautiful and indulgent dessert.
When I was a wee small thing, Mum would make a Yule Log (only we just called it a chocolate log) every Christmas, and I still remember how stressed she used to be about getting it to unroll to be iced then roll up again without cracking. It never bothered me if it cracked. There were lashings of cream, and (if I remember right) raspberry jam into the middle, and light, soft cake, all smothered with chocolate icing and cut to look like a tree branch. For a little kid, it was both magical and exceptionally posh. And delicious.
Living in France now, bûche de noël is the local equivalent, and it’s seriously fancy. I mean, French desserts are anyway, but this is a French special occasion dessert. They’re almost too pretty to eat. Almost.
So it seems appropriately festive to share with you. Plus I think Mortimer would appreciate the craftspersonship.
For the roll:
5 eggs, separated
64g/ ¼ cup + 2 Tbsp flour
25 g / ¼ cup cocoa
¼ tsp salt
200 g / 1 cup sugar
¼ tsp cream of tartar
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For the filling:
1 ½ tsp instant coffee (or you could leave this out and pop some fresh strawberries (or jam) in the roll instead)
240mL / 1 cup whipping cream
62g / ¼ cup + 3 tbsp icing sugar
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For the icing:
75g/ 2¾ oz butter, softened
250 g /1¾ cups icing sugar
35 g / 1/3 cup cocoa
1 tbsp brewed coffee, cooled (omit if you’ve gone the berry route)
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
2-3 tbsp milk
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Heat oven to 180C/350F. Line bottom of a Swiss roll tin (about 30 x 20cm, with low sides) with baking paper.
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Place eggs whites in a small bowl and let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.
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Sift flour, cocoa and salt together. In large bowl, beat egg yolks until slightly thickened. Slowly add 50g of sugar, beating until thick and pale, then fold in the flour mix.
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Add cream of tartar to egg whites, then beat until soft peaks form (make sure the beaters are clean!). Gradually add the rest of the sugar, beating after each addition until it’s fully dissolved. Continue beating (what did those eggs do to deserve this??) until soft glossy peaks form. Fold about a quarter of the whites into the batter, then once combined, fold in the rest. Spread into prepared pan.
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Bake for 12-15 minutes or just until top springs back when touched. Cool for five minutes, then tip out onto a tea towel dusted with cocoa powder (probably not one of your good ones, then). Peel off baking paper, and roll gently in the towel, starting on a short edge. Leave to cool.
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For filling, dissolve the coffee granules (if using) in the cream, then beat until it begins to thicken. Add icing sugar and beat to stiff peaks.
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Unroll cooled cake and spread with filling, not going all the way to the edges. Roll up again (without the towel this time, unless you fancy extra fibre), trim ends, and refrigerate seam-side down until cold.
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Beat all frosting ingredients until smooth, then go for it! Spread it all over and make fancy bark patterns with a fork. If you want to be really fancy, you could even cut one end of the log off at an angle, then stick the angled part back to the main log to make a branch. That’ll impress any dragons.
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Eat within two or three days. Or this afternoon.
Cranberry Pistachio Cookies
I love cookies. No secrets there. I love them in many different flavours and shapes and sizes, and special occasion cookies are even better because they come with a ready-made excuse for eating them.
But Christmas cookies such as the ones Miriam makes and decorates … Well, let’s just say I had no guilt about them ending up on the floor. Maybe I’ve never tried the right ones, but they always seem to be fun to make and decorate, but not so much fun to eat. They tend to be a bit dry and overworked, and because of the shapes they’re cut into, they often even up with rather excessively crispy corners. So, yes. I have met a cookie I don’t like, which I rather thought was impossible.
However, let it not be said that I dislike Christmas cookies. No, no. Not at all. And these Christmas cookies are singularly wonderful. They look gorgeous done up in a jar with some pretty ribbon and gift tag, and just as gorgeous on your plate with a cup of tea in front of The Nightmare Before Christmas or Labyrinth (what? They’re Christmas movies! Sort of).
They do ask for white chocolate chips, but I prefer dark – it stops them being too sweet. Plus I just don’t like white chocolate all that much …
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170g / 6 oz softened unsalted butter
150 g / ¾ cup (packed) soft light brown sugar
50 g / ¼ cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
250 g / 1 ½ cups flour
2 tsp cornflour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
135 g / ¾ cup white or dark chocolate chunks
75 g / ½ cup dried cranberries
65 g / ½ cup salted pistachios, shelled (this takes ages, so grab a helper. One who doesn’t eat as many as he puts in the pot. I’m looking at you, Mick.)
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Beat butter until smooth and creamy. Add sugars and beat on high speed until light and fluffy, stopping to scrape down the bowl as needed. Beat in egg and vanilla.
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In a separate bowl, combine flour, cornflour, baking soda and salt, then add to the wet ingredients and mix on low speed until just combined (it’ll be very thick). Add chocolate, cranberries, and pistachios, then mix lightly. Cover and chill for at least two hours and up to a day. Don’t skip this step. Speaking from experience here.
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Preheat oven to 180C/350F, and let cookie dough rest out of fridge for 10-30 minutes, depending on how long it’s been ch
illing. Line two baking sheets with baking paper. Scoop and roll dough into roughly 1 tbsp balls (it may take a bit of working to get them to stick together), then bake for 8-10 minutes or until just golden around the edges.
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Allow to cool for at least five minutes before removing them from the baking tray – they come out very soft.
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Makes about two dozen, or in other words you may need to make a double batch if you’re planning on giving any away.
Pavlova
Okay, I know this may result in my Kiwi citizenship being revoked, but I really don’t like pavlova. I don’t. Fresh cream and lots of glorious summer fruits? Yes! Amazing! And perfect for a New Zealand summer Christmas, when heading to the beach is as much a part of the celebration as paper party hats and bad jokes, and shorts and jandals are acceptable formal attire.
So why, then, would you ruin such perfection by sandwiching it between sticky, sweet sheets of meringue, which have inevitably started to sweat by the time everyone gets to dessert, and look a little like polystyrene daubed with glue?
I accept I may have some meringue issues. I’m not working on them, because, ugh. But I will still share a pavlova recipe, because while I may always eat around the meringue, I can’t imagine a Kiwi Christmas without it. It’s been a long time since I had Christmas there, but I still remember all the constants: my cousin and I, abandoning the adults and heading for the beach. Pohutukawas in bloom. Hot tarmac under bare feet. Jelly tip ice creams. The glorious chill of the sea and the smell of the land baking. And pavlova, like it or not.
And that matters.
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6 egg whites
450g / 2 cups castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp white vinegar
2 tsp cornflour
300 mL / 1 ¼ cups cream
Fresh fruit
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Preheat oven to 110C/230F (not fan). Line a baking tray with wax paper.
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In a large, non-plastic bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, beating constantly. It should take at least ten minutes, and the whites should get thicker and glossier as you go (it’s pretty, I’ll give it that).
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Beat in vanilla, vinegar, and cornflour.
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Spoon mixture onto prepared tray and make one large or two small rounds (if you’re being fancy and want to layer them).
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Bake for 1 ½ hours, or until dry, crisp, and easy to lift off the paper. Turn the oven off and let the meringue cool inside for at least half an hour before taking it out.
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Pile (or layer) with whipped cream and chopped seasonal fruits of your choice, and serve as soon as possible. Maybe leave a little fruit and cream aside for the non-meringue-lovers …?
Afterword
If this is your first meeting with Beaufort, welcome! I hope you enjoyed it – and if you did, you might want to go check out Baking Bad, his first cozy mystery, to find out how it all began. And if you’ve already done that, then you’re entirely amazing! Welcome back, and thank you for sticking with me. It makes me immeasurably happy!
If you enjoyed Yule Be Sorry (or didn’t), I’d appreciate it so much if you could take the time to pop a quick review up on Goodreads or the website of your choice. It helps me reach more readers, encourages others to pick up my books, and makes me terribly happy. Plus, it strokes my fragile writer’s ego, leading to more dragons
And if you were wondering -- Beaufort Scales was the result of a misread tweet and a fairly strange-as-usual conversation with my dad, in which he decided that Beaufort Scales was a better name for a badger than it was for a measure of wind strength.
I disagreed with the badger part, because scales, and I’m the one writing the stories, so …
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And, because you’re wonderful, I have free things for you! You can grab yourself a free collection of Toot Hansell stories by hitting this link. (or, if you prefer, you can type www.subscribepage.com/talesofbeaufortscales into your browser). By signing up you’ll be the first to know about new books, free ARCs, short stories, and cat photos. Because cats rule the interwebs.
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Now, do you want to know what happens next …? Scroll on to read the first two chapters of Beaufort Scales Book 3 - A Manor of Life & Death!
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Thanks again for reading, lovely people.
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Read on!
Need more dragons?
More dragons.
* * *
More tea.
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More chaos.
* * *
More murder …
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Grab the first four books in the Beaufort Scales cozy mystery with dragons series for only $7.99/£6.49 at your favourite retailer now! (That’s a saving of almost 40%!)
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And if you’d like to try a taster of book three, A Manor of Life & Death, read on!
A Manor of Life & Death Chapter 1: DI Adams
DI Adams turned the car off but didn’t move to get out. She just sat there in the slightly worn embrace of the seat, staring at the front of the house and considering just starting the engine, backing out of the parking space, and driving away again.
The house stared back. It was one of those big, rambling places that had probably started life as a Georgian estate, maybe the seat of some minor lord, then the Victorians had come along and added some spires and steeples and (almost certainly) a folly somewhere in the grounds. The gravel drive swept into a broad turning circle in front of the doors, a reluctant fountain as its focal point, and ivy roamed up the walls. Woods crowded the drive behind her, and, other than the crumbling outbuildings to the right of the manor, the only house she’d seen since leaving the main road had been a decrepit stone hut by the wooden bridge that crossed the river. It was the sort of place where, not a terribly long time ago, people with her skin colour would have been lucky to be allowed out of the servants’ area to do the cleaning.
Which wasn’t what bothered her. What bothered her was the sneaking suspicion that she’d come here for a weekend away with the very people who made her need a weekend away. She sighed, grabbed her bag off the passenger seat and climbed out, the slamming of the car door echoing against the front of the house and scaring a small, chubby bird out of the fountain. She refused to feel jealous of it as it fled into the trees.
“Oh, well done,” someone said.
“Excuse me?” She stared as a man stood up from among the cars parked by the fountain.
“You scared it.”
“The bird?”
“The bird.” The man shook his head sorrowfully, and two more men unfolded themselves from the cover of the cars.
DI Adams stared at them, mystified. One had a notebook that he was scribbling in furiously, and another was staring after the bird and clutching a camera that looked both very expensive and very heavy, judging from the way the long lens dipped toward the ground every time his attention wandered. The man who had spoken to her was festooned with various bits of electronic equipment, and they were all wearing the sort of multipocketed camouflage gear that wildlife photographers and safari guides favoured.
She didn’t know much about birds, but the one on the fountain had seemed a little dull and chubby. It hardly seemed to warrant much interest, unlike the peacock which was currently rushing toward them across the drive, doing his best to be noticed.
“Bu-kurk?” the bird said hopefully, displaying his tail feathers.
“Ugh,” the one with the notebook said.
“I’m sure she’ll come back,” DI Adams said, feeling slightly guilty. Although a driveway was hardly the ideal place for birdwatching.
“He,” the man with the camera said, boinking the lens off the bonnet of a car as he corrected her. “Male water rail. And they’re pretty timid.”
“Mind the came
ra, Keith,” notebook man said. “Steph’ll kill me if we damage that lens.”
“It’s heavy,” Keith complained. “I can’t believe you forgot the tripod.”
“I didn’t forget it. I told you, I had it in the room.”
“Whatever.”
“Well, he’s gone anyway,” electronics man said, and glared at DI Adams.
“Sorry,” she said. “But you know there’s a really nice peacock behind you, right?”
“Bu-kurk!”
“Peacocks are not the birds we’re looking for,” electronics man said. “Nothing but plump guinea fowl on steroids, them.”
“Buk?”
“Is it afternoon tea yet?” notebook man asked.
“Ooh, afternoon tea,” Keith said, and the trio gathered themselves up and crunched away across the gravel without another word to DI Adams. She watched them go, and after a moment the chubby bird flew back and started pecking its way around the fountain again.