Welcome Guest Penny Warner with Salted Caramel Pecan Brownies and a Giveaway! #Halloween recipe

Molly MacRae: I’m so pleased Penny Warner said yes to being my guest today! I met Penny more than a decade ago and was starstruck because I’d read all her Conor Westphal Mysteries and loved them. She’s a prolific and versatile writer, too, so I’ve had a lot more mysteries to love since then, including mysteries for middle-grade kids. Welcome to the kitchen, Penny!

Penny Warner: Thanks for letting me share a recipe from my latest book, Murder At Blackwood Inn!

I decided to let my husband follow the recipe for Aunt Hazel’s Salted Caramel Pecan Brownies and they came out perfectly (see the smile on his face for proof). 

He tweaked the recipe a bit—he’s quite the chef—and gave it just a hint of espresso. I added the ghosts. Hope you like the brownies as much as we did. Can you taste the espresso?

Here’s Aunt Hazel’s Top Secret Recipe (of course, all her recipes are top secret, and many of the ingredients come from her gardens).

Salted Caramel Pecan Brownies

Ingredients

4 oz butter

6 oz unsweetened baking chocolate

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder or 1/2 teaspoon find grind coffee

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 cup pecans, chopped (more if you dare)

1/2 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate morsels

3/4 to 1 cup salted caramel sauce

 

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 x 8 baking pan with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, microwave chocolate and butter until melted. Stir until well blended.

In a separate bowl, add sugar and eggs. Whisk until sugar is dissolved and the mix is light in color.

Incorporate the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture.

Slowly add the flour into the chocolate and egg mixture. Whisk until well blended.

Add the mini chocolate morsels and stir. (At this point, Hazel might add some of the special “herbs” from her secret garden.)

Pour brownie batter into prepared baking pan. Evenly spread the pecans over the mixture and press them into it.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Using the parchment, remove the brownies to a rack.

Drizzle salted caramel sauce over warm brownies. Cool completely, cut into 2” squares, and enjoy.

 🎃🎃🎃

Readers, what secret ingredient do you put in your brownies to make them special? 

Let me know in the comments (and remember to include your email address) for your chance to win a copy of Murder at Blackwood Inn and a ghost pen or cat pen! The winner will be chosen, at random, at noon on Wednesday 10/22.

 

Penny Warner’s latest adult mystery, Murder at Blackwood Inn, debuted on September 23, 2025 from Crooked Lane Books. 

She’s the author of the three-time award-winning middle-grade mystery series, The Code Busters Club, featuring four diverse kids who solve mysteries by cracking codes. 

She’s also the author of the award-nominated The Official Nancy Drew Handbook, as well as three other adult mystery series. 

The Conor Westphal Mysteries, starting with Dead Body Language (optioned by Academy Award Winner, Marlee Matlin), 

the Party-Planner Mysteries, starting with How to Host a Killer Party, 

and the Food Festival Mysteries (writing as Penny Pike), starting with Death Of A Chocolate Cheater. 

You can reach Penny at pennywarnerink@yahoo.com, www.pennywarner.com, and on Facebook.

 

 

Guest Blogger Penny Warner

Please welcome our guest, prolific author Penny Warner.

HOW TO MAKE A KILLER CHOCOLATE BREAD PUDDING

By Penny Warner

Like most female readers I’m a Choc-addict. That’s like being a crack addict but more fattening. So naturally both protagonists in my two mystery series have my disorder. Connor Westphal (DEAD BODY LANGUAGE) keeps chocolates hidden in her desk, while Presley Parker (HOW TO DINE ON KILLER WINE) offers them to unsuspecting crowds at her parties. But when she’s not sharing them, she uses chocolates for medicinal purposes. She has ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and the caffeine in chocolate and coffee are similar to drugs like Ritalin and Adderall, which calm her down instead of revving her up.

So she self-medicates. Often.

Unfortunately for Presley, her chocolates are sometimes lethal. As a party planner, she always includes some form of chocolate on the party menu. For example, in my first book, HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY, Presley Parker hires local TV chef Rocco Ghirenghelli to create chocolate Maltese Falcons for Mayor Davin Green’s Alcatraz Wedding Party. But she soon realizes a couple of the brown birds have been injected with cyanide. She discovers this when the bride-to-be is found floating in the San Francisco Bay, a victim of poisoning. And dead guests of honor aren’t really good for the party business.

In my latest book, HOW TO DINE ON KILLER WINE, Presley pairs wines with desserts, but soon the chocolate bread pudding becomes a weapon, when placed in the wrong hands. You can imagine what happens next…

So how did Presley get herself into this chocolate mess? That’s the way I wrote her. After all, it’s a murder mystery. And while I haven’t had much experience injecting chocolates with cyanide (see the Internet for instructions), I have had a lot of experience with chocolate, as well as party planning, writing party books for kids and adults, and creating mysteries. Since “they” often say, “Write what you know,” I decided to make my new sleuth a party planner (she prefers “event planner”), put her on Treasure Island where she lives and works, and have her solve mysteries all around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Presley, recently downsized from her teaching job at San Francisco State University, agrees to the career change after being encouraged by her mother, once a popular party girl and member of the City’s café society. But after developing early stage Alzheimer’s, Mother has retired to a care facility, leaving Presley to fill her party slippers.

After that it’s just one party foul after another…

Here’s Presley’s recipe for Chocolate Bread Pudding:

Ingredients

4 cups milk

4 eggs

½ cup sugar

8 tablespoons butter

12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 loaf white bread, no crusts

1 pint heavy cream, whipped

Directions

1.      Stir milk, eggs, and sugar in medium saucepan.

2.      Add butter and chocolate and heat over low, stirring until butter and chocolate are melted.

3.      Spray 13 x 9 inch pan with cooking spray.

4.      Arrange bread slices in 3 layers.

5.      Pour chocolate sauce over bread.

6.      Cover with plastic wrap and place another dish on top to weigh down bread for 1 hour.

7.      Heat over to 325 degrees.

8.      Remove top dish and plastic wrap.

9.      Bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes or until set.

10.  Serve warm with whipped cream.

11.  Serves 8

And now I’ll leave you with one last Presley Parker tip that’s guaranteed to make your party a success: “When your dessert soufflé falls flat, dump the disaster into the disposal and bring out your backup stash of gourmet chocolates. One bite of a Christopher Norman, Marie Belle or Lake Champlain chocolate and your guests will be eating out of your hands.”

Penny Warner has published over 60 books for both adults and children. Her first mystery series featuring Connor Westphal, a deaf reporter in the California Gold Country, won a Macavity Award for Best First Mystery, and was nominated for an Agatha and an Anthony Award. The seven books in the series will be available online soon.

Her new mystery series features event planner, Presley Parker, and is set in the San Francisco Bay Area. HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY offers a wedding on Alcatraz, HOW TO CRASH A KILLER BASH features a Murder Mystery Party at the de Young Museum, HOW TO SURVIVE A KILLER SÉANCE presents a Séance Party at the Winchester Mystery House, and  HOW TO PARTY WITH A KILLER VAMPIRE is set in Colma, the City of Souls.  HOW TO DINE ON KILLER WINE offers a mystery in the Napa Wine Country.

Her middle-grade mystery, CODE BUSTERS CLUB: SECRET OF THE SKELETON KEY, was nominated for an Agatha Best Juvenile Mystery Award. It features four kids who solve a mystery by cracking codes in each chapter. The second book in the series, CODE BUSTERS: THE HAUNTED LIGHTHOUSE, is set on Alcatraz. (Join the Code Busters Club at www.codebustersclub.com.) Her non-fiction book, THE OFFICIAL NANCY DREW HANDBOOK, was nominated for an Agatha Award.

She writes a column for the local newspaper on family life in the Valley, creates fund-raising murder mystery events for libraries across the country, and teaches child development at Diablo Valley College. She can be reached at http://www.pennywarner.com or pennywarnerink@yahoo.com.