Cherry Coconut Balls #Recipe by @LibbyKlein #Giveaway #Christmas #NewRelease

Libby Klein My new release is just six days away! I'm so excited for you to read it. From just looking at the cover, it should be no surprise that Silent Nights Are Murder is a Christmas Cozy. And there's naughty Figaro having just stolen one of the bird ornaments from the tree. If you've read my series at all, you know I have seven recipes in every book and I try to theme them to the story. Some of my favorite Christmas recipes are represented here, including the Christmas cookies I grew up on. My mother made Cherry Coconut Balls every year, as far back as I can remember. And I've made them every year from the time I had my own kitchen. They are very small like little bonbons. My husband says it isn't Christmas until he gets these cookies. 

My mother's recipe is made from Crisco and all purpose flour. She also underbakes them, not letting them get brown so they're very delicate. Over the years I've made some changes. Mine are now gluten-free with the substitution of a good gluten-free flour. I also use butter instead of Crisco, but you could easily substitute solid coconut oil. It's the consistency of shortening and it would up the coconut flavor. My final substitution is quite a splurge and - full disclosure - not as pretty as the original, but the taste is really elevated. I've been known to sub out the maraschino cherries for Luxor cocktail cherries. To keep the pretty pink frosting I still use the original maraschino cherry juice. 

For a chance to win a copy of Silent Nights Are Murder, let me know in the comments: What is your favorite Christmas Cookie?

Cherry Coconut Balls

Yield: 2 and a half dozen

Ingredients

 1 cup Sugar                                       

¾ cup Butter (or shortening /or coconut oil)                                     

1 egg                                            

1 tsp vanilla                                 

2 cups sifted gluten-free flour blend with xanthan gum                              

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

½ cup chopped Maraschino cherries

½ cup grated sweetened coconut

½ cup toasted chopped pecans optional

 

2 Tbsp Juice reserved from Maraschino cherries

1 cup powdered sugar

 

Preheat Oven to 325º.  Cream the butter and sugar with a mixer.  Blend in the egg and vanilla.  Sift the dry ingredients together, then add them to the creamed butter. Fold in the cherries, coconut, and pecans.

Drop small, rounded mounds by teaspoons on a lightly greased cookie sheet or a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until the cookies just beginning to brown on the edges. You don’t want them to brown on top. Let them cool on the pan before moving them to a wire rack or sheets of parchment paper.

Make your frosting by slowly adding the powdered sugar to the cherry juice. You want the fondant to be thick enough to spread. If it is too runny it will melt down over the top of the cookies.

When your cookies are cool, frost them with the pink fondant. I like to leave a few unfrosted to show off the cherries.  

Don't forget to comment to enter the giveaway. I'll close the contest Thursday at Midnight and announce the winner Friday morning.

Gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister and her aunt Ginny are looking forward to a quiet, homey Christmas at their B&B in Cape May, but unfortunately, death isn’t taking a holiday this year . . .

Ever since Thanksgiving, Poppy and her pals have been left with an unsolved mystery of the romantic kind. But at least this mystery isn’t the kind that involves murder. That all changes when the body of a fish supplier is discovered in the kitchen of her ex’s restaurant—and he’s frozen, not fresh.

For once, it’s not Poppy who tripped over the corpse, yet she can’t escape being drawn in since the victim has a note taped to him reading Get Poppy. Figures—an engagement ring isn't labeled, but the dead guy is addressed to her. Now, while Aunt Ginny plans a tree-trimming party and pressures Poppy to decode a mysterious old diary, the amateur sleuth is asked to “unofficially” go undercover at the restaurant to help the police. Until then, the only crime Poppy had been dealing with was Figaro’s repeated thefts of bird ornaments from the tree; now it looks like it’s going to be a murder-y Christmas after all.

 

Libby Klein grew up in Cape May, NJ where she attended high school in the '80s. Her 
classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/