Guest Author @Maria DiRico/Ellen Byron #guest #recipe #Giveaway

I'm super excited to welcome Lefty and Agatha Award winning author Maria DiRico/Ellen Byron to Mystery Lovers' Kitchen.

MARIA DiIRICO, AKA/ ELLEN BYRON: ITALIAN WEDDING COOKIES

In Four Parties and a Funeral, my 4th Catering Hall Mystery, there’s a wedding. But it’s not a big, fat Italian wedding like the ones I grew up attending. It’s a sedate WASP-y affair that forces the Queens crew featured in my series out of their natural element into the strange new world of Connecticut. (There’s also a reality show pilot called The Dons of Ditmars shooting in Astoria, ill-fated destination bachelor and bachelorette parties in New Orleans, and a couple of murders complicating everything. But for now, we’ll stick to the wedding theme.)

These cookies are sort of the Italian version of shortbread. I can’t tell you why they’re considered “wedding cookies.” (Much like I can’t tell you why the meatball soup I grew up eating is called “wedding soup.”) They’re a delicious way to celebrate any occasion – or just enjoy with an espresso. Abbondanza!

ITALIAN WEDDING COOKIES

Ingredients

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter (12 tablespoons)

¾ to 1 cup powdered sugar*

¾ t. salt

1 ½ cup blanched almond flour or finely ground nuts (I use slivered unsalted almonds and grind them with a Magic Bullet. But you can use a food processor or blender.)

1 ½ t. vanilla extract**

3 t. almond extract***

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/3+ cup powdered sugar for rolling the cookies

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream the butter in a large bowl. Slowly cream in the powdered sugar and salt until well combined. Cream in the ground almonds, then the vanilla and almond extract. Add the flour slowly – ½ cup at a time. The dough will be extremely crumbly. I sometimes use my hands – very clean hands! - to combine it.

Using your hands, take about a tablespoon of dough and form it into a ball or crescent or honestly, whatever shape will hold together. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and cook 15-20 minutes. You don’t want the cookies to get too brown.

Place the 1/3 cup powdered sugar in a small bowl. Let the cookies cool a little – you want to harden so that they don’t fall apart, but to retain a little heat so the sugar will stick to them - and roll them in the sugar.

Servings: approx. 30 cookies. For more cookies, you can make the balls or crescents smaller. But adjust the cooking time so you don’t burn them.

*I use 1 cup powdered sugar because I like the cookies a little sweeter. But ¾ cup is fine to use and may make the dough a little bit less dry.

**If you’re like me and can’t get enough almond flavor, substitute additional almond extract for the vanilla, so you’re adding 4 ½ teaspoons of almond extract to the dough. If you don’t want almond flavor, only use 4 ½ teaspoons of vanilla.

***You can also substitute anise or do a mix of anise and vanilla for another traditional Italian flavor.

ABOUT FOUR PARTIES AND A FUNERAL

SYNOPSIS: FOUR PARTIES AND A FUNERAL, Catering Hall Mystery #4 (as Maria DiRico)

Agatha Award-winning author Maria DiRico returns with the fourth book in the Catering Hall Mystery Series, starring Mia Carina who is coming to grips with being back in Astoria, Queens, and running her Italian-American family’s catering hall, Belle View Banquet Manor but a TV casting call is about to put murder in the spotlight . . . The June events schedule at Belle View is busting out all over—proms, graduations, and of course, weddings. There are unexpected bookings too, including a casting call for the pilot of Dons of Ditmars Boulevard. But soon, Mia’s fears about the cheesy reality show are confirmed . . . Belle View quickly becomes the site of a sea of wanna-be goombahs and phony girlfriends, and some of Mia’s friends insist on getting in on the action. The production company owner and his executive producer ex-wife—who’s also very minor British royalty—have assembled a motley crew that does as much infighting and backstabbing as the on-screen “talent.” Even so, it’s a shock when a dead body is found in the pool house of a local mansion rented by the show . . . Murder might boost the ratings. But Mia intends to make sure the killer gets jail time, not airtime. . .

What is your favorite cookie?

I'll give away a copy of HERE COMES THE BODY, the first book in the Catering Hall Mystery series. to one person (U.S. address only). To be entered into the drawing, please comment by Monday, March 13th and include your e-mail address. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR/GIVEAWAY

Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won multiple Agatha and Lefty awards. Bayou Book Thief, her first Vintage Cookbook, has been nominated for both Agatha and Lefty awards. She also writes the Catering Hall Mystery series under the name Maria DiRico. Ellen is an award-winning playwright and non-award-winning writer of TV hits like Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly OddParents, plus many shows that quickly and justifiably disappeared. Ellen was the 2023 Left Coast Crime Toastmaster but considers her most impressive achievement working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. Sign up for her newsletter at http://www.ellenbyron.com/.

Please welcome guest author Maria DeRico with book #giveaway

Buon giorno! Ellen Byron here, writing under the pen name, Maria DiRico.

My new Catering Hall Mystery series revolves around, well, a catering hall. It was inspired by my life. My mother is Italian, born in a small central Italian village called Orsogna. Her family wound up in Astoria, Queens, where cousins-by-marriage ran a couple of banquet halls.

Given the Italian – and subsequent Greek – influence on the neighborhood, and the subject matter of my series, adding recipes to the books was a gimme. But in addition to some homespun recipes, I wanted a unique and trendy party item for the first book, Here Comes the Body. What I came up with wound up having zero to do with either ethnic culture. Instead, it came about when I asked myself a question I often ask when it comes to recipes for my books: WWMD? What Would Martha Do? You see, one of first post-college jobs was working as a cater-waiter for the legendary Martha Stewart. If you have an early edition of her first cookbook, Entertaining, turn to page 29, you’ll see me standing next to her.

If Martha was still catering events, I can guarantee you that we’d be passing out Cookie Cup Shot Glasses to guests. Saluti! And par-tay!

COOKIE CUP SHOT GLASSES

Ingredients:

Cookie shot glass pan

3 Cups Flour
1 Tsp Baking Powder
2 Eggs
1 Tsp Vanilla Essence
⅔ Cup Chocolate Chips
1 Cup Brown Sugar
⅓ Cup White Sugar
½ Tsp Salt
1 ½ Sticks Butter (Melted and Cooled)
1 Cup Chocolate Melting Wafers for coating the inside (SEE NOTE)

Liquor or liqueur of your choice, or milk

Instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder together in a large bowl and set aside.

In another large bowl, beat the butter, vanilla, and eggs together well

Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter, stirring each addition to incorporate into the batter.

Gently mix the chocolate chips into the dough. Chill for about 10-15 minutes. This helps make the dough more manageable.

Take about two or three tablespoons of the dough, roll it into a ball about the size of a golf ball and place the ball into one of the molds in the cookie shot glass pan. Push down the dough with the metal insert, making sure the dough is pretty even all the way around. Leave the metal insert in place and trim the excess dough from the sides of the insert. Repeat with the rest of the molds. (As an alternative to pushing down into the ball of dough, you can try building a cup by putting a flat disk of dough on the bottom of the cup, building up the sides with more dough, and placing the metal insert into the dough, pressing a bit to seal.)

Bake the cookie cups around 15 minutes. Remove the cookie cups from the oven. While they’re warm, you can gently trim any excess dough from around the edges of each cookie – or not. Let the cookies cool. Extract them from the mold and repeat until you’ve used up all the dough.

Melt the wafers in the microwave, following the melting directions on the package. When the cookie cups have cooled, use a small spatula or a new, clean brush to coat the inside of each cookie with the melted chocolate. Check for holes while you’re doing this! You may need to add extra chocolate to seal the hole… or just eat that cookie. Let the chocolate cool and harden.

When the cookies have cooled, add the liquor or liqueur of your choice.

Serving: makes approximately 18.

NOTE:            Melting wafers are available at craft stores like Michaels. They come in different colors, so you can play with coating the cookie cups with the colors that are the theme of your event. You can even coat the cookie cups with blue or pink for a baby gender reveal party and fill them with milk to hide the color.

SECOND NOTE: You can try making cookie cups with other recipes, like sugar cookies or snickerdoodles. Feel free to experiment.

THIRD NOTE: If you don’t want to invest in a cookie shot glass pan, there are ways around that to create a cookie cup. You can make a rolled cookie and form it like a cup over a muffin tin. Do an internet search for “cookie cups” or “cookie shot glasses” and you’ll find an array of possibilities.

WHAT'S THE BOOK ABOUT?

Mia Carina moves back home to Queens, where her father Ravello, a capo with the Boldoni crime family, has been tasked with running a rundown banquet hall that was surrendered to him by a broke gambler. Mia has always wanted her father to go straight and she’s determined to help him run the place, with its view of Flushing Bay and the LaGuardia Airport runway, as a legitimate business. Then a body pops up – or technically, doesn’t pop up from a jump-out cake at a bachelor party. Who knew working for a catering hall could be as dangerous as working for the Mob?

GIVEAWAY

Today, I am giving away a copy of Here Comes the Body to one lucky commenter.  Tell me, have you attended a catered party? Any fun stories to share?  Remember to leave your email so I can contact you if you win.

ABOUT MARIA

Maria DiRico is the pen name of mystery author Ellen Byron. She is first-generation Italian American on her mother’s side. While growing up in Queens, Maria/Ellen's cousins ran the Astoria Manor and Grand Bay Marina catering halls. MARDI GRAS MURDER, the fourth book in Ellen's bestselling Cajun Country Mystery series, won the 2018 Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel. The series has also won multiple Best Humorous Mystery Lefty awards. Ellen’s TV writing credits include Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents.

Follow Maria aka Ellen here:

https://www.ellenbyron.com/catering-hall-mysteries

https://www.facebook.com/CateringHallMysteries/

https://www.instagram.com/cajuncountrymysteries/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/maria-dirico