Guest Debra Sennefelder, Apple Cider Donut Holes, Recipe, and a Giveaway

Darci Hannah: Today it's my turn to host a guest, and I'd love to introduce you to my dear friend and fellow cozy mystery writer, Debra Sennefelder! Debra is no stranger to whipping up delicious treats to include in the backs of her books, especially her Food Blogger Mysteries. Not only are her books a delight to read, but she's also a great cook and has shared her recipes on Mystery Lovers' Kitchen before. I know that fall is her favorite season, and she has a special treat for us today. Please give a warm welcome to Debra Sennefelder!

Debra Sennefelder: It’s great to be back at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen for another visit. It’s been too long! When I first visited in 2018, I was promoting my debut novel, The Uninvited Corpse, the first book in my Food Blogger Mysteries. Today, I’m eighteen books into this wild ride of a career, and I’m still excited to see what comes next. But today, I’m here to talk about one of my favorite things: delicious fall recipes!

Hands up if you love cooking and baking this time of year! Shorter days, cooler temperatures, and changing leaves make the perfect backdrop for spending time in the kitchen. I love anything pumpkin or apple once October rolls around, and I’m also a fan of a good Halloween story. In fact, that’s what inspired A Corpse at the Witching Hour, a Food Blogger Mystery featuring Halloween, a cursed house with a rumored ghost, and a family secret that turns the world of someone close to Hope Early, food blogger turned amateur sleuth, upside down. For me, one of the best things about fall is whipping up a tasty treat, grabbing a blanket, and settling in with a cozy mystery. Today, I’m sharing a recipe that’s perfect for pairing with a spooky cozy: Apple Cider Donut Holes!

Apple Cider Donut Holes

Makes: about 24–30 mini donut holes

Bake: 10–12 minutes

Ingredients

For the donut holes

1 cup apple cider 

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour 

1 teaspoon baking powder 

½ teaspoon baking soda 

½ teaspoon salt 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg 

¼ cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled 

½ cup granulated sugar 

1 large egg 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

For the cinnamon-sugar coating

½ cup granulated sugar 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 

Instructions:

Reduce the cider. Pour the apple cider into a small saucepan and bring it to a gentle simmer. Cook until reduced to ½ cup, about 10–15 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly. 

Prepare the pan. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously grease a mini muffin pan. 

Combine the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. 

Combine the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, and cooled apple cider. 

Make the batter. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir just until combined. Don't overmix. 

Fill the pan. Spoon the batter into the prepared mini muffin cups, filling each about ¾ full. 

Bake for 10–12 minutes, or until the tops spring back lightly when touched and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

Make the coating. While the donut holes are baking, combine the sugar and cinnamon in a shallow bowl. 

Coat the donut holes. Let the baked donut holes cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then remove them. While they're still slightly warm, brush each one with melted butter and roll in the cinnamon-sugar mixture. 

Serve. They're best served warm or at room temperature.

Now all that's left to do is grab a cup of coffee or tea, pick up a good mystery, and enjoy a little taste of fall. Happy baking and happy reading!

If you enjoy a little paranormal activity with your cozy mysteries, I have a new book coming this winter that I’d love to tell you about! Spirits and Suspicions, the first book in my Spirits in the Library Mystery series, is written under my pen name, Lexie Cooper, and releases on February 2, 2027. It features a runaway bride, a historic library, a ghost, and a murder that refuses to stay buried. It’s a perfect read for the spooky season and beyond!

Spirits and Suspicions

Preorder your copy today!

A Corpse at the Witching Hour

book six in the Food Blogger Mystery series

Buy your copy today!

Hope Early has to contend with ghosts, a fatal curse, and a decades-old family secret to catch a killer in the new Food Blogger Mystery . . .

When her best friend’s Aunt Issy falls ill, food blogger Hope Early agrees to help him hand out Halloween candy at his aunt’s house, which is rumored to be cursed. A murder-suicide took place there a century ago, and legend has it that a woman has died there every twenty years since—on Halloween. Hope doesn’t really believe in curses or ghosts, but when all the trick-or-treaters are gone and she discovers a woman’s dead body on the front lawn, she wonders if the curse might be real after all.

Then Hope and her friend discover a cache of love letters linking the dead woman to Aunt Issy’s husband years ago, and Hope is certain they’ve uncovered the motive for murder—and the police are certain Aunt Issy is their main suspect. Determined to prove Issy’s innocence and nab the real culprit, Hope starts shaking other branches of the family tree. But she forgets that Halloween isn’t the only day people hide behind masks, and if she’s not careful, Hope will come face-to-face with a ghoulish fiend who’s not afraid to kill again . . . 

Recipes included!

A Little Giveaway!

To celebrate my visit, I’m giving away a $10 Amazon gift card to one lucky reader.

I'd love to know: What's your favorite fall treat to enjoy while reading a cozy mystery? Is it apple cider donuts, pumpkin bread, a slice of apple pie, or something else entirely? Leave a comment below for a chance to win!

                                                              About Debra Sennefelder

Debra Sennefelder is the author of the Food Blogger Mysteries, the Resale Boutique Mysteries, and other cozy mysteries filled with murder, mayhem, and plenty of small-town charm. A former food blogger, Debra loves creating stories that combine her passion for food with her love of mysteries. She lives in Connecticut, where she enjoys reading, baking, and embracing all things autumn. She also writes paranormal cozies as Lexie Cooper.

Visit Debra online at debrasennefelder.com.

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/DebraSennefelderAuthor/

Instagram: Debra Sennefelder 

Curried Sweet Potato Pasties from Molly MacRae

 

I ate my first pasty (pronounced with a short a as in cat) in Cornwall in 1975. So good! Pasties are sturdy meat and potato hand pies and the traditional lunch for Cornish miners. They’re now considered the national dish of Cornwall and, since 2011, the name is fiercely guarded. To earn the name Cornish pasty, it must be made in Cornwall, and made of beef, potato, rutabaga, onion, salt, and pepper. No other meat allowed and no other vegetables or seasonings. The ingredients must be raw when tucked into their shortcrust pastry and the pasty baked slowly to develop the traditional flavor and flaky crust. Again, so good!

My recipe for curried sweet potato pasties breaks all the rules. I should probably call them hand pies but I came up with the recipe to fill a hole in our lives when my family became vegetarian, and well before 2011. By no stretch do these pasties taste like Cornish pasties. But, with apologies to Cornwall, they are so, so, so good.

Notes:

Because vegetables vary so much in size, my proportions are somewhat approximate. I often end up with more filling than will fit into my crusts. In that case I freeze the extra for another time.

If you don’t like the flavor of curry, leave it out. 

You’ll find a free, downloadable, printable pdf of the recipe below the cooking directions.

 

Curried Sweet Potato Pasties

 

Ingredients

Pie crust for 3 single shell pies

1/4 cup minced onion

2 tablespoons oil or butter

2 tablespoons flour

1/4  tsp black pepper

1/4  tsp dry mustard

1/8 tsp white pepper

1 Tb curry powder

1/2 to 3/4 cup water

vegetable bouillon concentrate or a cube for making 1 cup bouillon (but keep it as concentrate or cube)

1 medium sweet potato cut into 1/2-inch cubes

2 parsnips cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 medium white potato cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup raisins

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a small saucepan, sauté the minced onion in oil (or butter) until beginning to brown. Mix in the seasonings, including the bouillon concentrate or cube. Stir in the flour. Gradually add the water to make a thick sauce. Remove from heat.

Add the chopped vegetables and raisins to the sauce and stir to coat.

Divide the crust into 6 or 8 balls (I make 8 so each of us can have a leftover pasty for lunch the next day). Roll each ball into a circle about 1/8 inch thick. Divide the filling between the circles, placing in a line down the center of the circle. Bring the dough up over the filling and crimp the edges together to seal.

Bake the pasties on a rimmed cookie sheet for 30 to 45 minutes, until the crust is beginning to turn golden.

Cool slightly before eating.

 

click here for a free, downloadable, printable pdf of this recipe

 

 Out now!

All Shell Breaks Loose

Book 3 in the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries!

 

On North Carolina’s Ocracoke Island, Maureen Nash sells exquisite seashells to locals and tourists—with Bonny the shop cat and the ghost of a Welsh pirate for company. And when needed, she steps in to help the police solve a murder . . .

Dr. Irving Allred is boasting around town that he’s about to get his hands on an authentic haunted sword. But minutes after Maureen hears the story, a woman walks into the Moon Shell, sword in hand. She found it while walking her bulldog on the beach—and its blade is stained with what looks like blood. Looks like it’s time to call the sheriff’s department.

Allred is furious that his prize is now in police custody—and even more agitated that an unknown buyer was trying to outbid him. He’s convinced the sword will lead him straight to the ghosts he’s been hunting. He’s not the only one on the Outer Banks who’s been searching for spirits, though. An odd visitor also showed up at Maureen’s shop claiming the ability to sense them . . . though somehow she didn’t seem to notice Maureen’s spectral friend hanging about.

When a man who’d been camping nearby is found cut down along the shore, Maureen starts providing some unofficial assistance to Captain Rob Tate by digging into the island’s maritime history. But it’s not the only mystery she’s facing—because the shop’s resident ghost is seeing ghosts himself . . .

 

Writing as Margaret Welch

 Happy reading!

 

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries, the Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries, and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Instagram or Bluesky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apple Clafoutis @MaddieDayAuthor #giveaway

MADDIE DAY here, full into a New England fall. And you know what that means - apples! Cider Hill Farm is a mile from my house and has acres of apple and other fruit trees and bushes plus, of course, apple cider donuts. Yum.

I like to bake with apples, and this recipe from the Boston Globe caught my eye. It's easier than pie and a looked like a nice change from apple crisp. Also, to minimally assuage my deep envy of Leslie Karst eating her way through France for an entire month, Clafoutis is a French dish.

Apple Clafoutis

Adapted from a recipe by Sheryl Julian in the Boston Globe.

According to the article, clafoutis came about in the Limousin region of France, which is famous for cherries. Bakers made a batter similar to what they would use for crepes and poured it over black cherries in a baking dish. It’s now made widely with other kinds of fruits (the dish technically is called a flôgnarde when the fruit isn't cherries).

Ingredients

2 eggs

1 cup whole milk

½ teaspoon vanilla

¾ cup unbleached white flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

½ cup granulated sugar plus more for sprinkling

3 medium baking apples

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

Generously butter a 10-inch baking dish or deep pie pan (2 inches deep) and set aside.

Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl. Whisk in the milk and vanilla, and then the flour. When the mixture is smooth, whisk in the baking powder, salt, and sugar. 

Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 days.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Slice apples in half through the core. Carefully remove cores, keeping each half intact. Note: The original recipe calls for peeling the apples, but I think they are fine unpeeled.

Set each apple cut side down on a cutting board. Holding the knife perpendicular to the board, slice the apple half thinly. Keeping the slices together, transfer to the dish and fan them slightly. Repeat for each half.

Whisk the chilled batter until smooth. Pour it over and around the apples, letting it settle in an even layer.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until the batter is set at the edges and the apples are starting to brown. 

Note: I hadn't made this before, and my apples came out looking a bit dry on top, with all the batter cooked underneath. I spread butter over the top, sprinkled it with cinnamon and granulated sugar, and put the dish back into the oven for five minutes. Butter and cinnamon aren't shown in the ingredients photo.

Remove dish to a wire rack and let settle as it cools for at least fifteen minutes. Enjoy warm or at room temperature with whipped cream.

Readers: What's your favorite apple dessert? I'll give away a copy Murder at the Toy Soldier, my latest release, to one lucky commenter (include your email address). 

🍎🍏🍎

Murder at the Toy Soldier, Cozy Capers Book Group #8, is out and available wherever books are sold!

Next up is Murder in the Lighthouse, out in late February, 2027 and up for preorder now!

My other recent releases are:

A Poisonous Pour, Cece Barton #3,

Murder at Cape Costumers,

Scone Cold Dead, #13 in the Country Store Mysteries,

and A Case for the Ladies.

Check out all my writing.

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.

 

Amish Sweet Bread #recipe @vmburns

VMBURNS:  I mentioned my fear of yeast in a previous article when I FINALLY made a quick bread. Well, I am tackling my fears again. This time, I made an Amish Sweet Bread. It was delicious, and I can't believe it's taken me so long to try this. First, the ingredients are things that pretty much everyone has on hand (except the yeast). Flour, sugar, salt, and vegetable oil or butter. are staples in most of our pantries. Secondly, it's really easy to do. Thirdly, you control the ingredients. Need to watch the blood pressure? Skip the salt. Super easy.

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  AMISH SWEET BREAD

  
  
  
  
  
  
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INGREDIENTS

• 1 Cup warm water
• 1/3 Cups sugar
• 1 Packet Active Dry Yeast
• 1/2 Teaspoons salt
• 2 Tablespoons Vegetable oil
• 2 1/2 Cups flour
• 1-2 Tablespoons butter, melted

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Dissolve the sugar in the warm water. Stir in the yeast and let the mixture sit until it foams and bubbles, approx. 10 minutes.
   
   
   
   
2. Add salt and oil. Then, gradually mix in the flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. 
   
   
   
3. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough with the heel of your hand until it is smooth and elastic. Then fold it back onto itself. Turn the dough a quarter of a turn, and repeat. Do this for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.
   
   
   
4. Lightly grease a large bowl, and place the dough into it. Cover with plastic wrap, and place in a warm spot until the dough doubles in size (approx. an hour).
   
   
   
   
   
5. Punch the dough. This will expel the gas that has built up. Shape the dough into a loaf and put in a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan.
   
   
   Cover and let the dough rise until it doubles in size again (approx. 30-45 minutes).
   
   
   
   
6. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Bake the loaf for 30 minutes, or until the top is golden grown.
7. Remove the bread and place on a wire rack to cool.
8. Melt the butter in the microwave, and brush onto the warm bread.

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READERS: Have you made bread? If so, what kind? Let me know in the comments below. 

MURDER AT FIRST SLICE 

As Maddy’s wedding day approaches, friends and family descend on the little town of New Bison, Michigan, to celebrate—so much so that Maddy wonders if there might be another happily-ever-after in store for her widowed father and innkeeper Mrs. Law. Unfortunately, she also has to deal with an unhappy couple: feuding cousins Hannah and Dorothy, who haven’t spoken in decades. Maddy can only hope the spectacular wedding cake crafted by her head baker doesn’t wind up as ammunition in a food fight.

But she doesn’t have to wait long for a wedding disaster to strike. When the imperious Dorothy crashes the rehearsal dinner—with several uninvited guests in tow—and starts battering everyone with constant complaints, the drama reaches reality-show levels. And the next day, Dorothy is dead . . . with Hannah standing over the body, bloody rolling pin in hand.

Nobody in town believes Miss Hannah could commit murder. But a detective newly