Cream Cheese Snowcaps and a #Christmas #giveaway

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  It’s beginning to look a lot like – National Cookie Day! 

Officially, December 4 is the day, but a holiday this delish can’t be confined to twenty-four hours, can it?

These Snowcaps are new to our celebration. They’re tasty little morsels that melt in your mouth—and if they leave a little powdered sugar on your fingers, you know what to do! They’re a bit reminiscent of the ever-popular Russian Teacakes, aka Mexican Wedding Cakes and Snowballs, but perfect for the cookie monster who doesn’t like nuts. (Talk about a monster!) The cream cheese gives them a slight tang that counters the powdered sugar nicely.

What, you might wonder, is lemon extract? A fancy way of saying lemon juice? No. It’s made from soaking the peel in alcohol to get at the oils, giving it a strong lemon flavor without the acidity or pucker factor. (You can make your own; I didn’t.) 

As I write this, snow is falling, making these cookies the perfect little treat with an afternoon cup of tea or coffee. I assure you, they are equally tasty after dinner.

Because when it comes to cookies, why limit the fun?

I’m sweetening the celebration by offering one lucky reader a copy of “The Christmas Stranger: A Food Lovers’ Village Short Story.” Details below. 

PS: I finally figured out how to embed a PDF of the recipe for easy printing. 

Scroll down to the 💕 for the link. 

Cream Cheese Snowcaps 

½ cup butter

3-4 ounces cream cheese

½ cup granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon almond, vanilla, or lemon extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup powdered sugar

In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat butter and cream cheese till combined and softened. 

Add sugar and extract, and beat till fluffy. In a separate bowl, stir together flour and baking powder.

 Add to cream cheese mixture and beat until well-mixed. Cover and chill dough 1 hour.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon baking sheet. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. 

Bake 15-17 minutes, until bottoms of cookies turn golden and the tops begin to color. 

Remove and cool a few minutes. Place half the powdered sugar in a plastic bag and shake a few cookies at a time in the sugar. Add more sugar to the bag as needed. 

Cool completely on a wire rack. Shake cooled cookies in the powdered sugar again, if you’d like. (Some sugar may have been absorbed into the warm cookies.)

Makes 24 to 30 cookies. 

💕 Click here for a free printable PDF! 

Have you started your holiday baking? How are you celebrating National Cookie Day? What are your must-haves for holiday cookies? One reader will win an e-copy of "The Christmas Stranger: A Food Lovers' Village Short Story. (The story was originally published in Carried to the Grave and Other Stories, so if you have that collection, you've already got the story.)

And if all this talk of Christmas cookies and books whets your appetite for more, take a look at As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles: A Food Lovers' Village Mystery and Peppermint Barked: A Spice Shop Mystery. Both are available in paperback, ebook, and audio. And remember, books fit perfectly in any holiday stocking! 

Have you read the latest Spice Shop mystery, Lavender Lies Bleeding?

At Seattle Spice Shop, owner Pepper Reece has whipped up the perfect blend of food, friends, and flavor. But the sweet smell of success can be hazardous . . .  

Spring is in full bloom in Pike Place Market, where Pepper is celebrating lavender’s culinary uses and planning a festival she hopes will become an annual event. When her friend Lavender Liz offers to share tips for promoting the much-loved—and occasionally maligned—herb, Pepper makes a trek to the charming town of Salmon Falls. But someone has badly damaged Liz’s greenhouse, throwing a wrench in the feisty grower’s plans for expansion. Suspicions quickly focus on an employee who’s taken to the hills. 

Then Liz is found dead among her precious plants, stabbed by a pruning knife. In Salmon Falls, there’s one in every pocket. 

Pepper digs in, untangling the tensions between Liz and a local restaurateur with eyes on a picturesque but neglected farm, a jealous ex-boyfriend determined to profit from Liz’s success, and a local growers’ cooperative. She’s also hot on the scent of a trail of her own, sniffing out the history of her sweet dog, Arf. 

As Pepper’s questions threaten to unearth secrets others desperately want to keep buried, danger creeps closer to her and those she loves. Can Pepper root out the killer, before someone nips her in the bud?

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook 

Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.  

“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. Watch for Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop Mystery, on July 15, 2025.

A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.