Release Day News! New Paperback Edition of The Mango Murders by Lucy Burdette

 

Congratulations to our own... Lucy Burdette!

On the release of the 

*New Paperback Edition* 

of her Key West Food Critic Mystery 

THE MANGO MURDERS

Now in Paperback! 

Praise for The Mango Murders:
“A colorful background and fun for foodies enliven a tale of jealousy and revenge.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Readers will fall in love with everything about this series.”
—Cozy Mystery Book Reviews

“Another gem of a cozy mystery . . . For readers with an interest in deftly crafted ‘whodunnit’s starring an amateur female sleuth.”
—Midwest Book Review

“A marvelous mystery.”
—Escape with Dollycas

“Another good one . . . Fans of the series will enjoy.”
—Red Carpet Crash

“If you’re looking for something light and gossipy, full of food and sunshine and friendship—and there are times when we all need that—this is a perfect book for you.”
—Ann Cleeves, New York Times bestselling author

Sally’s Strawberry Roll-up Cake for a Celebration @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: Whoo-hoo! Time for a celebration--and that means cake! I have two books coming out this month, the paperback edition of THE MANGO MURDERS, and the hardcover and ebook editions of book 16 in the Key West food critic mysteries, A DELICIOUS DECEPTION. This cake, while a little fussy, was the perfect celebratory treat. You could also use it for our country’s 250th anniversary—just add some decorative blueberries! The recipe started on Sally’s Baking Addiction, but I tweaked it to make the production a little easier on the chef.

Ingredients for the cake

Four large eggs, room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons whole milk

2 teaspoon teaspoons vanilla extract

One cup cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons confectioners sugar for dusting

Separate the eggs into two bowls. Beat the egg whites with 1/4 cup of the granulated sugar until stiff peaks appear.

In the second bowl, beat the egg yolks with the remaining half cup sugar, the whole milk, and the vanilla extract, until thick and light.

Gradually fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture. Using a fine mesh sieve, sift the cake, flour, baking soda and salt into the batter. Mix gently until just combined.

Ahead of time, prepare a 10 x 15” baking pan. Butter the pan, add a piece of parchment paper over top, and butter that too. Meanwhile, sift the 2 tablespoons of confectioners sugar onto a thin tea towel or a piece of parchment. (You will use this for rolling the cake.)

Bake the batter in the prepared pan for 15 to 16 minutes. When the cake is done, flip it onto the sugared cloth or parchment, and carefully roll it up. Let rest until cool. (This step shapes the cake so it doesn’t break later.) Meanwhile, prepare the filling. 

Ingredients for the filling

8 oz cream cheese

1 cup freeze dried strawberries, making 1/2 cup ground  

1 cup heavy cream

1.5 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Fresh strawberries for decoration, optional but recommended 

Grind the cup of freeze dried strawberries, then drop in the cream cheese. Whip this until combined—the cream cheese will be a lovely pink color. Add the sugar and vanilla, pulse those in until combined.

Whip the heavy cream until thick, and gently fold this into the cream cheese mixture.

Unroll the cooled cake and spread it with cream cheese frosting. Cover the frosting with thin slices of strawberry. Roll the cake with frosting back up. Use the remaining frosting to decorate, along with leftover strawberries. (I had every intention of learning to pipe the icing into roses, but ran out of time!)

This makes a good sized and beautiful cake. Leftovers should be refrigerated and can be frozen. (We only had one piece left and I had my doubts, but it still tasted amazing!)

A DELICIOUS DECEPTION, coming July 14 at a bookstore near you!

Book 15 in the Key West series, paperback edition of THE MANGO MURDERS, is in bookstores July 7!

USA Today bestselling author Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series including A POISONOUS PALATE and A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS. Join her mailing list right here.

Orange Date Scones by Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: Back in 2020 in the days of the pandemic, I made a recipe of banana date scones that was fashioned after an amazing scone that we tasted in Scotland. With this scone, I had been hoping to bring back memories of happier times.  Those months and years were so hard, and we were all trying our best to figure out how to survive! For me, food was a big part of it.

Today’s recipe is another date scone, but it uses yellow Bahri Dates from California, along with orange extract and peel from Penzey’s that I’ve been meaning to try. If you don’t like the idea of so much orange, you could replace the extract with vanilla or even almond. You could also add nuts if you like. You could also add a glaze of confectioner’s sugar and orange juice. I skipped that this time.

The basic scone recipe comes from Sally’s baking addiction, with tweaks from me. She is very definite about using frozen butter that has been grated, and then mixed into the dry ingredients. So that’s what I’ve always done and they turn out well.

Preheat the oven to 400

Ingredients for the scones

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon dried orange peel

1/2 cup unsalted butter, frozen

1/2 cup heavy cream or whole milk

One large egg

1 teaspoon orange extract

One cup yellow dates, cut into small pieces

Whisk the dry ingredients together.

Grate the frozen butter into the dry ingredients and mix into pea-sized crumbs.

Whisk together the egg, the cream or milk, and the extract. Pour this over the dry ingredients, followed by the dates. Mix until moist.

Scrape the dough onto a piece of parchment on the counter that has been lightly floured. Flour your hands as well. Mix lightly until it holds together and tap the dough into a circle. Slice the circle into wedges, the size you want to serve.

At this point, you can brush the scones with more cream and sprinkle them with sugar. Transfer the parchment to a plate and freeze them for at least 15 minutes. Move the scones to a baking sheet covered with a clean parchment sheet.

Bake the scones for 22 to 25 minutes until lightly browned.

USA Today bestselling author Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series including A POISONOUS PALATE and A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS. Join her mailing list right here.

Book 15 in the Key West series, THE MANGO MURDERS, is in bookstores now!

The trade paperback edition of A POISONOUS PALATE is out now! 

And the trade paperback edition of A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS is out now!

Janet Snow's Shrimp Fritters by Lucy Burdette

 

LUCY BURDETTE: These are allegedly the shrimp fritters that Hayley’s mother Janet Snow was passing around when the catamaran blew up in the first chapter of The Mango Murders. I cannot vouch for that recipe because she did not share it with me and no one on the cruise was able to taste it! I did the best I could to imagine something similar, and included a mango peach salsa which was delicious. The salsa can also be made with avocados instead of peaches, if it’s not peach season. Either way, fair warning, it’s chunky and would be difficult to eat as a canapé. I’m certain a real caterer would come up with a solution! By the way, both of the jalapeños in the photo are from our garden. I was nervous about using the red, riper version, thinking it might be very hot. NB, it wasn’t too hot and it offered a gorgeous red pop.  

Ingredients for the mango salsa

1 ripe mango, peeled and diced

One ripe peach, peeled and diced

1/2 red onion, finely chopped, optional (I did not choose to add this)

1 jalapeño, seeded and minced (use more or less depending on your desired spice level)

1-3 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped

1 lime, juiced

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Combine the diced mango, peach, red onion if using, jalapeño, and cilantro in a medium bowl.

Add lime juice, salt, and pepper.

Stir to combine and let rest for 10–15 minutes, or refrigerate for up to 30 minutes, to meld flavors. 

Ingredients for the shrimp fritters

1/2 lb shrimp, peeled, deveined, and coarsely chopped

1/4 cup flour 

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 egg

Splash of Guinness

3 scallions, chopped 

1 jalapeno, minced

corn kernels cut from one ear

Vegetable oil, for frying (I used olive)

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Stir together the chopped scallions, chopped jalapeno, corn, and egg. Chop the shrimp and add that. 

Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the shrimp mixture and mix lightly. Splash in a bit of beer.

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan. Drop batter by tablespoonfuls and fry in batches until golden brown, about 3 minutes per side.

Serve with the mango salsa and possibly also cocktail sauce and a wedge of lemon if desired. 

**Meanwhile, here are some deals for you. The ebook edition of A DISH TO DIE FOR is on sale this month for $1.99! 

**The audio editions of THE KEY LIME CRIME and DEATH WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS are both on sale for $1.99! (Not sure how long this one will last...)

**Finally, after a several month delay, the audio edition of THE MANGO MURDERS is finally available!

USA Today bestselling author Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series including A POISONOUS PALATE and A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS. Join her mailing list right here.

Book 15 in the Key West series, THE MANGO MURDERS, is in bookstores now!

The trade paperback edition of A POISONOUS PALATE is out now! 

And the trade paperback edition of A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS is out now!

A Peach Pie in Disguise for #Halloween by Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I remembered making a wonderful pie ten or so years ago for wonderful writer Nancy Pickard, whom we’d invited to teach a class in Connecticut. The recipe came from Whole Grain Baking by King Arthur flour. It was a peach pie with a crumb crust, and oh so good. Since the peaches have been so amazing this year, we froze 6 cups of them to use in a future pie. At the last minute, I added some blueberries that were otherwise going to go unused. This is not actually a Halloween recipe, but I thought you could admire John’s pumpkins and gourds from the garden while reading about my peach pie in disguise.

Ingredients for the filling

6 cups of peeled and sliced peaches, either fresh or frozen

Other fresh fruit as desired

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon almond extract

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon water.

1/4 cup cornstarch

Ingredients for the topping.

2/3 cup of old-fashioned rolled oats, pulsed in the food processor.

1/2 cup oats, left whole.

1/2 cup brown sugar, either light or dark 

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

The King Arthur recipe also had a fancy crust which you can look up in their book. I had a crust in the freezer left over from my experiment in tomato pie. So I decided to make it easy on myself and use that.

Defrost the crust, but keep it cold.

For frozen fruit, place it in a large pan and heat to a simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to break up the bigger pieces. Stir the nutmeg, cinnamon, and almond extract into the peach mixture. In a small bowl, combine the cornstarch, the lemon juice, the water, and stir this until smooth. I found there wasn’t enough liquid to smooth out the cornstarch, so I added some from the pan of fruit. When this is smooth, stir it into the peach mixture.

To make the topping, pulse the first batch of oats until it’s partially broken up. Add the cubes of butter and pulse this until distributed. Mix in remaining oats plus the vanilla and the pinch of salt.

Remove the crust from the refrigerator and place it on a pan covered with parchment. (You will thank me for this later!) Add the peach mixture to the crust. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the top of the pie.

Bake at 375 until the topping is golden and the filling is bubbling, about 50 minutes. You can see that mine was a big mess! Serve this with either ice cream or whipped cream or nothing.

But oh so good!

For some serious Halloween posts, you can check out the cheese ball dressed as a pumpkin or Alison Roman's carrot cake or even a fancy stuffed pumpkin. Happy Halloween!

USA Today bestselling author Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series including A POISONOUS PALATE and A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS. Join her mailing list right here.

Book 15 in the Key West series, THE MANGO MURDERS, is in bookstores now!

The trade paperback edition of A POISONOUS PALATE is out now! 

And the trade paperback edition of A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS is out now!