Welcome Maya Corrigan & #Giveaway

Thank you, Peg, for hosting me on Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, the place I visit for great recipes and news about the latest mysteries. Today I’m sharing a recipe from my new release, Crypt Suzette, the sixth Five-Ingredient Mystery. 

My main character, Val Deniston, is catering a Halloween party and costume contest at Bayport’s new bookshop. The contestants include the Fictionistas, a creative writing group started by the secretive Suzette, who rents a room in the house Val shares with her grandfather. When Suzette is found dead of an apparent accident, Val and Granddad suspect foul play. So do Suzette’s fellow Fictionistas, who accuse each other of murder. Did one of them kill her or was her death rooted in her past, which she’d tried hard to keep hidden? As Val tries to answer that question, she risks becoming the next “accident” victim.

For the bookshop’s party, Val makes spooky-sounding treats—Mummy’s Apple Pies (hand pies with pastry strips making them look like wrapped mummies) and Crypt Suzettes (crệpes Suzette which, at the bookshop owner’s request, will not feature setting the sauce aflame). This dish involves making thin pancakes and dipping them in orange butter sauce. Traditionally, the crệpes are folded in half and then again in half to make triangles. But Val rolls the crệpes and serves them in elongated paper containers to make them look like shrouded bodies in a coffin. Perfect for Halloween.

Crêpes Suzette

Recipe for the Crệpes

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1 1/2 cups milk

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon oil for the pan plus additional oil as needed

Whisk the eggs, milk, and salt until well mixed. Slowly whisk in the flour. 

Note: You can cook the crêpes immediately, but refrigerating the batter for 20 minutes will smooth out any lumps or bubbles. Letting the batter rest makes it less likely the crêpe will tear in the pan. The batter can keep for a day or two.

Heat a 10-inch skillet or crêpe pan at a medium setting. To keep crêpes from sticking, do not put the oil or batter in until a few drops of water sizzle in the pan and disappear in 2 seconds

Add enough oil to cover the bottom of the heated pan. Pour 1/4 cup of batter into the pan and tilt it so the batter spreads into a thin circle coating the bottom. Cook at medium heat until the edges turn light brown and the center of the crêpe has hardened past a liquid stage. Gently loosen the crêpe with a spatula and flip it. Cook for another minute and transfer it to a large plate or platter where the crêpe can lie flat.

Repeat the preceding step until the batter is gone, stacking the cooked crêpes on the plate. Add a small amount of additional oil after every other crêpe to prevent the batter from sticking.

Yield: 10–12 eight-inch crêpes

Recipe for Orange Butter Sauce

10–12 crêpes

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup sugar

1 orange for1 tablespoon grated orange zest and 1/3 cup orange juice

1/4 cup Grand Marnier, Cointreau, or other orange liqueur [Optional; if skipping, add more orange juice]

Zest the orange. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat until it foams. Stir in the sugar, orange juice, zest, and liqueur. Simmer on low heat until the sauce thickens a little. Remove the skillet from the heat. 

With tongs, add a crêpe to the pan, coat both sides in the syrup, and serve, either folded into quarters or rolled. Put it on a warm plate. 

Repeat the previous step for each crêpe.

Serve crêpes garnished with orange slices or with ice cream for dessert.

Yield: Sauce for 10–12 eight-inch crêpes

What is your favorite Halloween sweet? Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of Crypt Suzette. A U.S. winner will receive a signed Advanced Reader’s Edition paperback. An international winner will receive an e-book. To enter, comment below about your favorite Halloween treat and include your email address for notification if you win. Good luck!

Maya (Mary Ann) Corrigan lives in Virginia, an easy drive from Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the setting for her Five-Ingredient Mysteries: By Cook or by Crook, Scam Chowder, Final Fondue, The Tell-Tale Tarte, and Crypt Suzette. The series features café manager Val Deniston, who solves murders with her live-wire grandfather in a historic Chesapeake Bay town. Each book has five suspects, five clues, and Granddad's five-ingredient recipes. Visit Maya’s website, mayacorrigan.com, for trivia and quizzes about classic mysteries. She loves hearing from readers.

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