New Year's Eve Banana Creme Pie Puffs - Libby's Final Post @LibbyKlein

 

Happy New Year's Eve!

2025 is over! Can you believe it? Time just goes faster and faster with every passing year. It seems like I've been on the Mystery Lovers' Kitchen blog forever, but it's only been a couple of years. I've loved my time in the kitchen with these amazing authors and it pains me to have to go. But life has gotten very busy and there just isn't as much time to write my Layla Virtue Mysteries as I need to create the depth of story that Layla deserves. I will miss you all commenting on my recipes. I hope you try to make some of them and let me know how they turn out for you.

I'll be finishing up the last few chapters in book 3 here in the next few weeks. The working title is currently When the Levee Breaks. Meanwhile, Gimme Shelter releases in April when the trade paperback of Vice and Virtue comes out. 

 

And you may or may not be aware that Poppy is getting a refresh with new covers! 

These are the ones I've seen so far.

   

  

I’ll no longer be on the blog every other Wednesday, but you have an amazing new cook coming to the kitchen soon! In the meantime, feel free to sign up here for my hardly-ever-sent newsletter to be able to get all my news and nonsense right after I get it. It's the best way to stay in touch because I don't control Facebook or Instagram and we can't keep up with their algorithm changes. As a farewell, here is one of my all time best gluten free recipes that will be sure to amaze family and friends who won't believe there is no gluten.

Libby's Banana Cream Pie Puffs

Yield: 12 large or 24 small cream puffs

 Choux Paste (sounds like Shoe paste) – a most intimidating sounding recipe - is actually very easy. I recommend using a stand mixer for incorporating the eggs.

 

INGREDIENTS:

1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter

1 cup water

Hefty pinch salt

1 cup gluten-free flour blend that has xanthan gum already added

*if your gluten-free flour blend does NOT have Xanthan gum already added (like Bob’s Red Mill does not) add ½ teaspoon xanthan gum to the recipe

4 eggs

Vanilla Pastry Cream:

 INGREDIENTS:

¾ cup sugar

¼ cup cornstarch

Heavy pinch salt

1 ½ cups whole milk – Not skim milk. 

    If you’re making pastry with skim milk you don’t deserve cream puffs.

6 egg yolks

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract - or scrape one vanilla bean

Later:

1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream

2 Ripe Bananas

 

DIRECTIONS:

 Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. In a heavy saucepan, add 1 stick of butter and 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. 

When the butter is melted, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the flour all at once, mixing quickly (the mixture will form a ball). Let it stand for a couple of minutes to cool a few degrees.

Transfer to the bowl of your stand mixer (or keep beating it to death with a wooden spoon like I show here) and add the eggs to the flour mixture, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. 

Transfer a large scoop of dough into your fitted pastry bag. Pipe rounds of dough for 12 large or 24 small puffs. Dip your fingertips into cold water and smooth the mounds of dough into pretty balls. They will puff us as they bake but they won’t smooth out like dinner rolls.

Bake the necks at 375° F. for 10-12 minutes, or until nicely golden. Bake the domes for 30-35 minutes until golden brown. Poke a hole in the side of each one with a knife and put them back in the oven for 2 minutes. Take them out and let them cool.

Make the pastry cream filling.

In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, bring the sugar, milk, cornstarch, and salt to a simmer. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks.

Bring the mixture in the saucepan to a boil while stirring continuously. Continue to simmer until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat and gradually whisk hot milk into the egg-yolk mixture a little at a time to bring up the temperature of the yolks. Add everything back into the saucepan and cook over medium-low heat while whisking continuously until the custard is so thick it coats a spoon, like soft pudding. 

Now cook it until it boils for one minute. It will be very thick even while hot. Remove from heat and stir in 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract or the vanilla beans. Transfer the custard to a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap down to the surface of the custard. Chill until the custard is completely cold. The plastic wrap won't even cling to the custard it's so thick.

In a separate bowl, beat the 1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form.

With a rubber spatula, fold a little of the whipped cream into the custard to loosen it up. 

Then fold all the custard into the whipped cream. Chill again until thick and stiff.

Slice your puffs in half like hamburger buns. and dollop pastry cream in the middle and top with ripe banana slices. Cover with a little more pastry cream and the top half of the cream puff bun. Finish with a dusting of powdered sugar.

Gougeres and French Manhattans -- Happy New Year!

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  A few years ago, I bought Mr. Right a copy of Drinking French by David Lebovitz for Christmas – just in time to celebrate New Year’s Eve with some of David’s treats. Gougère and French Manhattans are a pairing the man himself recommends, and we heartily agree!

What, you ask, are gougères? Little cheese puffs, almost as easy to make as they are to eat! Lebovitz says Comte, Jarlsberg, or Cheddar would work in place of the Gruyere – what you’re after is a hard cheese with a strong flavor. Lebovitz recommends using your mixer’s paddle attachment; at the time we made these, we had a mixer that didn’t have one and the regular beaters worked fine. I’m looking forward to paddling with my new red Kitchen Aid this New Year’s Eve! He calls for cayenne; it’s a small amount, but if cayenne troubles you, try a sweet paprika. Because he’s a pro, he has several recommendations for mounding the dough – a spring-loaded scoop, a pastry bad, yada yada. I settled on a small silicon spatula and my finger as the best scoop.

And a French Manhattan? It’s an American Manhattan with a delightful French accent! (We didn’t have cherries the day I took the pictures. We also didn’t have coupe glasses. Act American and punt!) 

Friends, we are all grateful for your presence in our lives and at the blog this past year. Everyone of us wishes you great joy, good food, and fabulous reading in the year to come!

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

Scroll down to the 💕 for the link. 

Gougères (adapted from Drinking French by David Lebovitz)

1 cup water

½ cup unsalted butter, cubed

½ teaspoon kosher or sea salt

1/4 teaspoon cayenne or sweet paprika

1 cup white, all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

2-3/4 cups grated Gruyere (divided use)

Adjust oven racks, raising the top rack a bit for maximum air circulation. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon baking sheets.

In a medium saucepan, heat the water, butter, salt, and cayenne over medium to medium-high heat, stirring until the butter is melted.

Add the flour all at once. Reduce heat to medium and book, stirring continuously, until the dough forms a smooth ball and no longer sticks to the side of the pan.

Scrape the dough into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, and let rest for 2 minutes, “bursting” the mixer (turning it on and off) a couple of times to cool the dough.

Turn the mixer to medium-high and add the eggs one at a time, incorporating each before adding the next, and stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides before each addition. Add 1-3/4 cups cheese and mix.

Scoop 1-1/2 tablespoons of dough onto your baking sheet and repeat, with at least an inch between the mounds, about 15 per baking sheet. Each mound should be about 1-1/2 inches wide. With the remaining cup of cheese, top each mound with as much cheese as you can. 

Bake 5 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 degrees and bake until the top and sides are deep golden brown, about 30 minutes. Midway, rotate the baking sheets 180 degrees and switch their position on the racks so they bake evenly.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes about 30. 

French Manhattan (from Drinking French by David Lebovitz)

For each cocktail:

1-1/2 ounces cognac

1-1/2 ounces sweet vermouth

1/4 ounce Grand Marnier or Cointreau

1 dash orange or Angostura bitters

Candied amarena cherry or maraschino cherry, for garnish. 

Add the cognac, sweet vermouth, Grand Marnier, and bitters to a cocktail mixing glass. Add ice and stir until well chilled. 

Strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a cherry. Eat with a gougère -- or two or three!

Bonne année, nos amis!

💕 Click here for a free printable PDF! 

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.

SPOTLIGHT ON PEG COCHRAN/MARGARET LOUDON #GIVEAWAY

 

I’ve done a few of these now and I’ve been puzzling over how to make this Spotlight different.  I could tell you that my 31^st book, Where the Bodies Are Berried, #10 in my Cranberry Cove Series, just came out.  I still can’t believe I get to write books let alone thirty-one!  My first books were published by what was then Berkeley Prime Crime.  The logo was a bloody handprint on the spine.  I remember going in bookstores on my lunch hour, seeing those books and thinking one day I want my name on one of those.  I can’t believe it’s actually come true!

 

And now, I thought I’d do a Q&A highlighting a few things about my various books.

 

Favorite Series I’ve Written:  My Murder, She Reported series.  It’s set in New York City in 1938.  Researching the details for the books was so much fun—finding a floor plan for the Waldorf Astoria Hotel so I would know where the ladies room was on the ballroom floor (where my victim is murdered);  pouring over details of the 1939 New York World’s Fair including the pool where Billy Rose staged his Aquacade musical (and where my victim is found dead, floating in the water) ; reading all about the “Long Island Express” the terrible storm that took the east coast by surprise causing untold damage and loss of life (and nearly covering up the murder of my victim).

 

 

Favorite Research Trip:  Visiting a cranberry farm in South Haven, MI to witness a cranberry harvest firsthand for my Cranberry Cove Series.  I also startled the tour guide when I asked him what they would do if a body floated up in the bog!

 

 

Favorite Character:  Impossible to pick!  I love all my characters and can’t single out a favorite.  That would be like asking which of my children was my favorite.

 

Series That Made Me Laugh:  My Lucille Series actually made me laugh out loud on occasion as I put my character Lucille Mazzarella in humorous situations.

 

 

Series That Allowed Me to Travel:  My Open Book Series written as Margaret Loudon, although it was only armchair travel to England.  And I wouldn’t have been able to visit my setting, the town of Upper Chumley-on-Stoke, since it was purely fictional.  

 

 

Most Unusual Murder Method: In Steamed to Death from my Gourmet De-Lite Series, the victim is drugged and trapped in an overheating steam cabinet.

 

Now for my question for you:  what is your favorite location to visit vicariously through the books you read? 

 

 

GIVEAWAY! 

 I am giving away one e-book copy of Where the Bodies Are Berried to one person who comments below--what is your favorite location to visit vicariously through the books you read?

 

 

  

 

When a wealthy local benefactor is slain on the farm, Monica has to figure out who wanted to cash in on the killing . . .

As Sassamanash Farms hunkers down for the long winter, Monica agrees to let the local animal shelter host their Christmas-themed fundraiser there. The draw of the event—a chance to have your pet’s picture taken with Santa—brings in animal lovers from far and wide. But when the crackling fire dies down and the festive holiday props are all carted away, Monica discovers a very un-jolly sight next to the barn—the dead body of one of the shelter’s biggest donors. With the farm’s good name in jeopardy, Monica goes to work to root out the killer.

By all accounts the victim was a charming and generous supporter of the shelter, but Monica discovers that he was loathed by those who knew him for being tight-fisted and unscrupulous. Suspecting money might be the motive, she turns her sights on his stylish wife and her lavish lifestyle, along with the manager of the struggling shelter, who stood to collect a hefty bequest from his will. But as Monica closes in on one final clue, the culprit closes in on her. Caught unawares, she’ll have to survive the brutal winter weather, as well as a cold-blooded killer . . . 

Amazon

Barnes & Noble 

A former Jersey girl, Peg now resides in Michigan with her husband. She is the author of numerous cozy mystery series including the Open Book (writing as Margaret Loudon), Murder, She Reported, Cranberry Cove, the Farmer's Daughter, Gourmet De-Lite, the Lucille series and Sweet Nothings Lingerie (written as Meg London). When she’s not writing, you’ll find her either cooking, reading or spoiling her granddaughters and grandson.