Gluten-Free Raisin Scones #Recipe by @LibbyKlein

  Libby Klein I love Afternoon Tea with a passion. My girlfriends and I started going to Afternoon Tea twice a year for our birthdays many years ago because our birthdays were really close together. That morphed into four times a year because we kept adding friends to the group. Then came the year that for whatever reason we decided that I would make the afternoon tea. And when I say "we decided," I mean "they decided." I've had a long history of being volunteered to bake things. My first tea party was so huge and so tasty... That genie would not go back into the bottle. Have you ever been to Afternoon Tea? Let me know in the comments.

Poppy hosts her first tea party in Beauty Expos Are Murder with a lot of the recipes I used at my first tea party. I've included the tea recipes in the back of the book.  I have many afternoon tea sandwich recipes that I love, but my favorite is the gold standard - cucumber and cream cheese. And if you have nothing else at a tea party, you have to have scones. With proper clotted cream, jam, and lemon curd. Here is my recipe for gluten-free scones, and here I've put raisins in them. You can serve them at your next fancy-do and no one will know they are gluten-free. 

Disclaimer - Read all your labels to make sure your ingredients are gluten-free. Gluten can be sneaky.

Gluten-Free Cream Tea Scones

 Serves 12

Ingredients:

3 cups Gluten Free Flour blend that contains xanthan gum or add 1 teaspoon of xanthan gum to the mix
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar
8 Tablespoons Cold butter
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup raisins, soaked in water and drained

Additional heavy cream, to brush on top of scones before baking

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment.

Into a food processor bowl, combine gluten-free flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Pulse until well combined.

Add cold butter by the tablespoon and pulse until combined.

Add the vanilla extract to the heavy cream. Pour in a little at a time while pulsing.

  

You should form a lovely cohesive dough. Not sticky, but no flour left in the bottom of the bowl either. Lightly dust your counter with gluten-free flour. Turn the dough out and let it rest for a minute.

Form the dough into a ball and flatten it with your hands. place your raisins over the top of the dough and knead them in. Form into a ball and flatten it with your hands again. Roll out to a thickness of about ¾ inch thick. Cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter.

Place rounds on a prepared baking sheet. Brush the tops with heavy cream.

Bake for 15 minutes and check for doneness. I usually cut that last ugly one I mashed together with the leftover dough in half to see if the middle is baked all the way. If they need a little more time, put the pan back in the oven for five minutes. If the tops are getting too brown, turn the oven down to 350 degrees for the last five minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool until you won’t burn your mouth. Serve warm and spread with Devonshire Cream and Jam or Lemon curd. Or all three. I’m not judging. 

 

Fans of Jana DeLeon and Joanne Fluke will love Libby Klein! Gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister is about to see the ugly side of beauty expos...

Easter weekend on the Jersey Shore is hopping. Poppy's Bed and Breakfast is busier than ever, but she needs to leave things in the hopefully capable hands of Aunt Ginny--and paws of Figaro the black smoke Persian. She's selling her paleo muffins and keto cookies at the Health and Beauty Expo in Cape May's Convention Hall. Normally sharing a booth with the love of her life would be a treat, but she's recently discovered secrets that throw her new romance into chaos.

But more secrets are about to be exposed at the expo. In his keynote address, prominent cosmetic surgeon Dr. Lance Rubin reveals his breakthrough anti-aging technology. Unfortunately, someone has one-upped him with a truly foolproof anti-aging formula: murder. With the plastic surgeon dead under his own UV mask, and bedlam reigning in the hall and back at the B&B, Poppy needs to follow a twisted trail marked by glowing footprints to unmask a killer...  See it here.

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/

Easy Scone Basic Recipe #Recipe by @LaurenElliott

Lauren Elliott Hello, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen! I’m honored to be here and would like to say a big thank you to Leslie Budewitz for inviting me and Libby Klein for being our host today. This guest appearance is perfect timing as I’ll soon be celebrating the release of Dedication to Murder, book nine in the Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery series.

Many of you who have read my books might be wondering why an author who writes about a thirty-something-year-old woman’s love of rare and gently used books and doesn’t highlight any recipes in her bookshop series would be a guest on a blog called Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen. That’s simple. Even though this is not a culinary mystery series, a lot of eating does take place, and my main character, Addie Greyborne, can often be found munching happily away on a scrumptious scone or cream-cheese-icing-slathered cinnamon bun, courtesy of Martha’s Bakery, which just so happens to be right next door to Addie’s bookshop in the fictional town of Greyborne Harbor, Massachusetts. 

So, even though there are no recipes in my books—for good reason—as I, just like Addie, who once had to call the fire department when she made a pot of spaghetti, am more of a disaster in the kitchen than a culinary master, my characters do enjoy delectable treats. Due to my British/Irish ancestry, the first thing that pops into my mind when Addie needs a go-to snack is tea and scones. Lucky for Addie, her best friend, Serena Ludlow, owns a specialty tea shop, and Martha Stringer often has something new baking away each day. Now, Martha and I don’t have much in common (except for one or two creaking knees!) but even I, a disaster in the kitchen, can bake scones without breaking into a rash or burning my house down.

"Even though there are many similarities between them, British and American scones are actually very different."

Scones are traditionally connected to Scotland, England, and Ireland and originated as a quick bread made with oats then cooked on a griddle. Today’s versions are generally made with flour and baked in the oven and have grown in popularity in America over the years. Even though there are many similarities between them, British and American scones are actually very different. British scones are more basic and easier to make since they traditionally contain fewer ingredients and were meant to be topped with things such as clotted cream, butter, lemon curd, and/or different types of jams and jellies. American scones offer a variety of ingredient additions and range between sweet to savory. There is also a difference in shape as American scones are often cut into wedges or triangles while British scones are circular, fluffier, and resemble an American biscuit.

The basic recipe, and the one I follow, can be used for either, but I take it one step further in its simplicity—disaster in the kitchen, remember—and I don’t even roll out and cut the dough into shapes. I simply drop it from a tablespoon onto a parchment-paper-covered baking sheet and let the oven do its best.

  

EASY SCONE BASIC RECIPE

 

INGREDIENTS

 2 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut up
1⁄4 cup granulated sugar (use 1/3 for slightly sweeter scones)
2⁄3 cup milk

 DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 425°F (220 Celsius)

Put flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl; mix, stirring well

Add butter and cut in with a pastry blender or rub in with your fingers, until the mixture looks like fine crumbs.

Add sugar; toss to mix.

Add milk and stir with a large spoon until dough forms (the dough may be a bit crumbly).

Place dough on floured counter and knead gently until the dough comes together in a ball. Note: Cooking Preparation Options

I skip the last step above—the easier the better I say— and drop about half a tablespoon of rough dough onto a parchment-paper-covered cookie sheet, so they’re slightly apart for crisper edges.

Others prefer patting or rolling the dough into a circle about 1 1/2 inches thick and then cutting each circle into 6 or 8 wedges and then place them on a greased or parchment-paper- covered cookie sheet, slightly apart for crisp sides, touching for soft sides.

For either method bake about 12 minutes or until medium brown on top. 

See, easy-peasy and something scrumptious to munch on while you enjoy reading the latest adventures of Addie Greyborne in Dedication to Murder.

A first edition of The Velveteen Rabbit provides bookshop owner Addie Greyborne a telling clue to a cold case in her family’s past . . .
 

Wedding bells are about to ring again in Greyborne Harbor, and as Addie slips into her white dress her thoughts are focused on a bright future with Dr. Simon Emerson. But a discovery in her attic leads her to startling revelations about the past. As the owner of Beyond the Page Books and Curios and a lifelong bibliophile, Addie is delighted to find a rare collection of classic children’s books gathering dust in a secret room beneath the rafters, including a first edition of The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. To her surprise, a handwritten inscription on the title page provides a clue to unraveling a complex mystery in Addie’s family . . .

But that’s only the first surprise in a series of shocking twists that will turn Addie’s vision of where her life is going and where she’s come from upside down—including a suspicious death in the present that suggests foul play.

 For a chance to win a signed copy of Dedication to Murder, just leave a comment answering this question: Do you enjoy reading the classics and if so what is your favorite of all time and one you would like to see featured in the Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery series? 

 

Lauren Elliott is the USA Today bestselling author of the Shay Myers Tea Shop Mysteries and the Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery Series. She grew up devouring Nancy Drew, graduated to Agatha Christie, and then began writing her own mysteries, as well as bringing her passion for storytelling to careers in professional theater and journalism. She can be found online at LaurenElliottAuthor.com.

For more information about books, upcoming releases, sales and tons of giveaways, please check out Lauren Elliott’s Mystery Readers Group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1213565802478082

Or these other links…

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurenelliottauthor/

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BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/lauren-elliott-01aaed26-3606-472a-897c-0fbb72add215

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7783109.Lauren_Elliott?from_search=true

Kensington Authors: https://www.kensingtonbooks.com/author/lauren-elliott/

Website: http://laurenelliottauthor.com/

Victoria Sponge Cake #Recipe @PegCochran

 

Victoria Sponge Cake, also know as Victoria Sandwich was a favorite of Queen Victoria's.  Lady Fiona Innes-Goldthrope, aka Figgy, bakes plenty of Victoria Sponges and other goodies for her tea shop located inside the Open Book in my Open Book Series set in the village of Upper Chumley-on-Stoke, England.  The third book in the series, Peril on the Page, is now out and in your bookstores as well as online.

Victoria Sponge is generally served along with scones and small sandwiches at afternoon tea in Britain.  It is meant to fill the gap between lunch and dinner and was a practice introduced by the Duchess of Bedford, lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria.  She found herself getting hungry in the afternoon and had her maid bring her tiny sandwiches, pieces of cake and a pot of tea.  Afternoon tea is also known as a "cream tea," not to be confused with "high tea."  High tea is a heartier meal consumed by workers upon returning home after a long day.  It is known as high tea because diners sit at high-backed chairs around a table as opposed to afternoon tea when those partaking are ensconced in low, comfortable armchairs.

Victoria Sponge is not like the typical American sponge cake.  It is not quite as airy but is still light and moist.  The cake has no frosting, but traditionally has strawberry jam and whipped cream or butter cream between the layers.  There is no need to stick to the traditional--you can customize the cake with any flavor jam you like. The recipe I used came from the King Arthur web site.

Cake:

16 TBL unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup plus 3 TBL sugar
4 large eggs at room temperature
1 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract (optional and not traditional)
2 cups self-rising flour

Filling:

3/4 cup of jam
3/4 cup of heavy cream
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 TBL sugar or to taste
2 TBL simple syrup or agave syrup

Garnish:

Confectioners sugar  

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray two 8-inch round cake pans, line with parchment paper rounds and spray again.

 

Beat butter and sugar until combined and smooth.  Beat in eggs one at a time. Add the extracts.

Add the flour and beat gently until combined.

 

Divide the batter evenly between cake pans. There should be approximately 15 ounces in each.

 

Bake the cakes for 22 to 26 minutes.  Do not over bake.  The cakes should be only slightly golden on top and be pulling away from the sides of the pans.

Cool for several minutes and turn out onto a rack.  Let cool completely.

 

Place one layer on a plate and spread with strawberry jam.

 

Whip the cream and sugar and spread on top of the jam.  Top with the second layer of cake.

 

Brush the top of the cake with syrup.  (I  don't think this is really necessary--the cake is sweet enough as it is.)  Sprinkle with confectioners sugar before serving.

OUT NOW!

Book #3 in the Open Book Series

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

A murder in her quaint British bookshop drops American Gothic novelist Penelope Parish into her deadliest caper yet.

Penelope Parish is ready to close the book on her amateur sleuthing—from now on, The Open Book’s writer-in-residence will be sticking to villains of the fictional variety while she puts the final touches on her new novel. But when an author is murdered inside the bookshop, all of Upper Chumley-on-Stoke goes on high alert.
 
Now it’s up to Pen and the quirky citizens of Chumley to stop a killer and protect the charming British town she’s begun to call home.

 

 

 Book #1

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

    Book #2

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