Memorial Day Cake @MaddieDayAuthor #giveaway

MADDIE DAY here with a jump on the US Memorial Day holiday, coming up on Monday. This is a yummy sour cream cake that's easy to decorate with a sour cream frosting and red and blue fruit. See, you can use it for the 4th of July, too! You're welcome.

Memorial Day Cake

Who doesn't love a red, white, and blue dessert for Memorial Day? This cake is adapted from a Sweetest Menu recipe.

Ingredients

Sour cream cake

3 cups all purpose flour 

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick softened butter

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups full fat sour cream

Sour cream frosting and fruit topping

1 stick butter, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1/4 cup full fat sour cream

2 cups cleaned and halved strawberries

2 cups blueberries

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons cognac, sherry, or other liqueur (optional)

 

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and line a 9”x13” pan or two cake pans with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Add sour cream and mix to blend.

In a small bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir into wet ingredients.

Transfer cake batter to your pan(s) and gently smooth the top. 

Bake cake for approximately 35-40 minutes or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Leave cake to cool slightly before carefully removing from cake pan(s). Leave on a wire rack to cool completely. Remove parchment paper and place on serving platter. (I covered a cutting board with tin foil.)

To make the frosting, add butter to a large mixing bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes or until smooth and creamy. Add vanilla and powdered sugar and beat slowly until it starts to come together. Add sour cream and continue to beat until smooth.

Cover top (and middle if using two pans) of cake with sour cream frosting.

Mix blueberries and strawberries with sugar and alcohol (omit if desired) and let sit half an hour.

Spoon onto cake. Refrigerate if the cake won't be eaten promptly.

Enjoy after your cookout and/or with your favorite veteran.

Readers: What dessert do you enjoy on Memorial Day or another spring celebration? 

I'll send one lucky commenter Mulch Ado About Murder, my fifth Local Foods Mystery (written as Edith Maxwell), which takes place over Memorial Day weekend!

🍔🍓🎂

Murder at the Rusty Anchor will be out at the end of June!

A Case for the Ladies is out and available wherever books are sold!

My most recent releases are Deep Fried Death, #12 in the Country Store Mysteries.

And Murder Uncorked, Cece Barton Mystery #1, which released in late October.

Check out all my writing:

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.

Welcome Edith Maxwell!

A very warm welcome to our friend, Edith Maxwell. Edith writes three series. Her latest book, MULCH ADO ABOUT MURDER, will be in bookstores on May 30th. Don't miss Edith's giveaway!




 

Kale and Couscous Salad

I’m delighted to be back here to share a taste of my fifth Local Foods mystery, Mulch Ado About Murder, which releases at the end of this month. I’ll send an ARC to one commenter here today, too!

In the book, it’s been a hot, dry spring in Westbury, Massachusetts. As organic farmer Cam Flaherty waits for much-needed rain, storm clouds of mystery begin to gather. Once again, it’s time to put away her sun hat and put on her sleuthing cap when a fellow farmer is found dead in a vat of hydroponic slurry—clutching a set of rosary beads.

Showers may be scarce this spring, but there’s no shortage of suspects, including the dead woman’s embittered ex‑husband, the Other Man whose affair ruined their marriage, and Cam’s own visiting mother, one of the two Drs. Flaherty. Lucky for Cam, her father turns out to have a knack for sleuthing—not to mention dealing with chickens. Will he and Cam be able to clear her mom’s name before the killer strikes again?

Cam orders this delicious and easy locally grown salad for her dinner when she takes her visiting parents to Throwback Brewery in North Hampton, New Hampshire. The actual brewery’s co-owner, Nicole Carrier, was kind enough to share a version of the recipe for my book, which I have modified slightly.

Ingredients

1 cup pearl couscous

4 cups washed and finely chopped kale leaves (discard the stems)

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/4 cup grated Parmesan

1 tablespoon cumin

1 tablespoons good olive oil

1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

Pepper

Directions

Cook the couscous until al dente and drain well. Sprinkle the salt over the kale in a big bowl and rub with your hands for a few minutes until it wilts. Add the cooled couscous, walnuts, cranberries, cheese, and cumin, and mix. Stir in two tablespoons olive oil and one tablespoon vinegar. Adjust oil and vinegar to taste, and grind black pepper over the salad. (The picture shown here omits the cranberries because of a non-fan at the table.)

Enjoy!

Readers, how do you feel about kale? Where is your favorite farmers’ market? Do you have any local-foods based restaurants you enjoy eating at? And remember I’ll send an advance copy to one commenter.

2017 double Agatha-nominated and national best-selling author Edith Maxwell writes the Local Foods Mysteries and the Quaker Midwife Mysteries; as Maddie Day she writes the Country Store Mysteries and the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. Her award-winning short crime fiction has appeared in many juried anthologies and journals, and she serves as President of Sisters in Crime New England.

A fourth-generation Californian and former tech writer, farmer, and doula, Maxwell now writes, cooks, gardens (and wastes time as a Facebook addict) north of Boston with her beau and three cats. She blogs at WickedCozyAuthors.com, KillerCharacters.com, and with the Midnight Ink authors (http://midnightwriters.blogspot.com). Find her on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and at edithmaxwell.com.