Mystery Lovers' Kitchen

Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake: @Darci Hannah, #St. Patrick’s Day, #Recipe, #Giveaway

Hi, DARCI HANNAH here,

A few years ago, my publisher asked me to write a St. Patrick’s Day book for my Beacon Bakeshop Mystery series. This request kind of threw me. I had already written a Christmas book for the series, MURDER AT THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE BAKE-OFF, as well as a Halloween book, MURDER AT THE PUMPKIN PAGEANT. Those are two of my favorite holidays, and writing about them was so much fun, mostly because those holidays center around food, and I had lots of great recipes to include in the books. While our family celebrates St. Patrick’s Day with the traditional meal of corn beef, cabbage, and soda bread, which we love, that’s about it for us. We’re not Irish, or so my mother always told me. 

However, if I was going to write about St. Patrick’s Day in Beacon Harbor, I was going to go all-in, both with the story, which revolves around a superstitious Irishman and his belief in leprechauns, and with the food. Needless to say, I enjoyed writing this story so much and baking so many delicious Irish baked goods for the book, that by the end of the novel, I was a little sad that I wasn’t of Irish descent. It’s odd how the universe works, because right after I turned my manuscript in for MURDER AT THE BLARNEY BASH I got the results back from a 23 & Me kit our kids gave us for Christmas. And guess what? I learned that I’m 7 percent Irish! I have no idea where that came from, but genetics don’t lie. Now, whenever St. Patrick’s Day rolls around, the Hannah house has something to celebrate. Yes, we’re a wee bit Irish too!

I wanted to share with you our favorite St. Patrick’s Day dessert from MURDER AT THE BLARNEY BASH, a decadent Bailey’s Irish Cream Cheesecake. 

For this recipe, you’re going to need a springform pan.

Prep time: 30 min. Cook time: 1 hour 15 minutes. Inactive time: 6 hours. 

Ingredients:

For the crust:

1 regular full-size package of Oreo cookies (36 sandwich cookies)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:

3 8-ounce packages full-fat cream cheese softened

1 cup full-fat sour cream

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs plus 2 egg yolks at room temperature

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder or strong instant coffee

1 tablespoon of hot water (to dissolve espresso powder)

½ cup Baileys Irish Cream liqueur

For the chocolate ganache:

6 ounces (1 cup) semi-sweet chocolate chips

½ cup heavy cream

¼ cup Baileys Irish Cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350℉. Prepare the 9-inch springform pan for the water bath by wrapping the bottom and halfway up the sides with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Lightly spray the pan with non-stick cooking spray. 

Put Oreo cookies in a food processor and reduce to fine crumbs. You may have to do this in smaller batches. Tn a large mixing bowl, combine the cookie crumbs with the melted butter and mix well. Press the mixture into the bottom of the springform pan and halfway up the sides. Bake crust for 10 minutes. Remove and set aside to cool. Reduce oven temperature to 325℉.

Add the softened cream cheese and the sour cream in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat until completely smooth. 

Add in the sugar and continue to beat until smooth, scraping sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. 

Next add the eggs and the egg yolks and continue to beat until smooth and velvety. 

In a small bowl mix the instant espresso powder with the hot water and stir until completely dissolved. Next, add the Baileys Irish cream and stir until combined. 

Gently fold this mixture into the cream cheese mixture until all the Irish cream is incorporated. Pour the filling on top of the partially baked crust. 

To make the water bath, place the springform pan in the middle of a large roasting pan.  Fill the roasting pan with an inch of hot water and place in the oven. Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. 

Once the cheesecake has been baked, leave it in the oven and turn off the oven, letting the cheesecake sit undisturbed for an additional 40 minutes. Remove the cheesecake from the oven and gently run a sharp knife around the edge of the cake. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours. 

One hour before serving the cheesecake make the ganache. Place the chocolate chips in a medium bowl. In a small saucepan over medium heat, gently heat the cream until it begins to bubble along the edges. 

Pour the cream on top of the chocolate chips and let sit for 1 minute. 

Using a whisk, incorporate the chocolate into the cream and whisk until smooth and glossy. Whisk in the Baileys Irish Cream. Let the mixture cool completely before pouring over the cheesecake. 

Return the cheesecake to the refrigerator for one more hour. Once the ganache has set the cheesecake is ready to serve. Enjoy!

For a printable copy of this recipe, click here!

I the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, I’m giving away a copy of MURDER AT THE BLARNEY BASH to one lucky winner. To enter my giveaway please answer the question in the comments below, and don’t forget to leave your email in the comments:

What is your favorite holiday food or treat that you eat on St. Patrick’s Day? 

Continental U.S. only please.

Darci Hannah is the bestselling author of the Beacon Bakeshop Mystery Series, the Food & Spirits Mystery Series, the Very Cherry Mystery Series, and two works of historical fiction, The Exile of Sara Stevenson, and The Angel of Blythe Hall. Darci grew up in the Midwest and currently lives in a small town in Michigan with her husband and two dogs. Darci is a lifelong lover of the Great Lakes, a natural wonder that inspires many of her stories. Passionate about family, dogs, food, baking, history, books, lighthouses, laughter, good conversations, coffee, and the paranormal, Darci feels especially blessed to have found a way to combine her interests in the stories she writes. It brings her great joy to be able to share them with you. 

Connect with Darci at www.darcihannah.com

Instagram: @authordarcihannah

Facebook: @Author Darci Hannah

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A St. Patrick's Day cozy mystery you're sure to love!

Follow the aroma of shamrock sugar cookies to the Beacon Bakeshop, a lighthouse on the shores of Lake Michigan where amateur sleuth Lindsey Bakewell is busy preparing for Beacon Harbor’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities – with a little help from her adorable Newfoundland, Wellington, of course!

Lindsey is baking up a storm—shamrock sugar cookies, Guinness chocolate cupcakes, Irish soda bread—for the well-timed grand opening of the Irish import gift shop, the Blarney Stone, owned by her boyfriend’s uncle, Finnigan O’Connor, recently relocated from the Emerald Isle.

But it’s Uncle Finn himself who seems full of blarney when he gleefully reveals a pot of real gold he claims he stole from an actual leprechaun. And Finn’s fortune takes a turn for the worse when he’s arrested for the bludgeoning of a small unidentified man dressed as a leprechaun—the murder weapon alleged to be his now-missing shillelagh.

Eccentric Uncle Finn may enjoy believing he’s outwitted a leprechaun, but he would never be so deluded as to clobber one with his walking stick. Now Lindsey will need more than the luck of the Irish to seize a golden opportunity to catch the real killer . . .

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Now that Bunny’s entrées come with a side of the Other Side, it comes in handy to have a grandma who’s friendly with the elderly owners of a haunted Scottish castle. During Bunny’s childhood she heard all about Dundoon’s bloody history and the “ghostly piper” who roamed the grounds—and soon she’ll be visiting the ancient place with her ghost hunter and psychic co-stars. The annual bagpipe competition in the late piper’s honor will make for some good footage as well. 

After Bunny serves a feast fit for a 17th century king, including lamb chops with plenty of fresh herbs, she heads outdoors for the ghost hunt. But in the dark, dense fog, someone fatally plunges from the clifftop over the loch. The sound that follows is a mournful, otherworldly bagpipe . . . and once the body of another perished piper is retrieved, Bunny is determined to solve this Highlands homicide—and prevent a killer from getting off scot-free . . .

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A Fatal Feast at Bramsford Manor

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While filming at a haunted English manor, chef Bunny MacBride’s big break on her first reality TV show may be cut short by an unscripted murder in Darci Hannah’s new Food & Spirits cozy mystery series . . .

It isn’t how chef Bridget “Bunny” MacBride imagined her own cooking show unfolding. But, if preparing historic meals with a modern flair is what it takes to get her cooking on the air, she can deliver, even if her dinner guest is a ghost. That’s the premise of the new reality TV show Food & Spirits, where Chef Bunny teams up with ghost hunter Brett Bloom and psychic medium Giff McGrady to visit haunted locales around the world and tempt lingering spirits back to the table with a beloved meal. For their first episode, the Food & Spirits team sets off to investigate Bramsford Manor, a historic house turned famously haunted hotel, in picturesque Hampshire, England. The sprawling estate is said to be home to the Mistletoe Bride, a young woman who died in the 18th century, the victim of a tragic accident on her Christmas wedding night.

Bunny leaves the spectral search to the pros and focuses on the feast, creating a traditional English holiday wedding dinner, complete with a gorgeous prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, and rustic apple tarts. But Bunny’s task is made more difficult when someone steals a boning knife from her custom kit. Alas, when the blade finally turns up again—in the chest of an all-too-human dinner guest—Bunny’s woes only grow as she is named a lead suspect in the case! Now, with a haunted house full of living residents, staff, and crew, Bunny will need the help of Brett, Giff, and her clairvoyant Grandma Mac, to solve this murder before the manor gains another ghost!

Preorder today!

Coming this July!

Murder at the Campfire Cookout

By Darci Hannah

Book #7 in the Beacon Bakeshop Mystery Series

When Lindsey Bakewell leaves behind her lighthouse bakeshop, her boyfriend, Rory, and her Newfoundland dog, Wellington, for a glamping trip with her mother in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the bears leave them alone—but a killer doesn’t. . .

Converting the old Beacon Point lighthouse into a bakery is as adventurous as Lindsey cares to get. Her mother, Ellie, a former 80s fashion model, likes her creature comforts even more—until she sees a business opportunity for her Beacon Harbor fashion boutique when she’s invited by the Mitten Kittens Glamping Club on a woodsy getaway.

Far from roughing it, the ladies will be warm and cozy in chic vintage campers. Ellie insists Lindsey come along to win the campfire cookout contest. Campfire cooking has come a long way from bacon and beans. Soon Lindsey is making pizza, berry cobbler, and gooey Carmelita camping bars.

But the festive spirit is soon dampened when a body is found in Ellie’s camper. It seems like an accidental death until everyone’s tires are slashed and it’s clear the glampsite has become a crime scene. With no cell service to call for help, it’s up to Lindsey to smoke out the killer around the campfire . . .

Because no one is out of the woods yet.