LUCY BURDETTE: I’m delighted to bring my writing pal Christine Falcone to the blog today. I’m especially thrilled because she will have book 2 in her Melanie Bass mystery series out next month, and, because she brings us cookies! Don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for a copy of Ex’d Out. Welcome Chris!
CHRISTINE FALCONE: Thank you Lucy for inviting me here today on Mystery Lovers Kitchen. It isn’t as if the main character in my mystery series, visiting nurse Melanie Bass, can’t cook. As a matter of fact, she feels she is a good cook. However, since her divorce a few years previously, after work she tends to grab quick meals rather than doing a lot of cooking and baking. This is beginning to change, however, as in the latest book, BORROWED TROUBLE, she now has a boyfriend to impress. One of the things I think she might make for her new sweetheart is sugar cookies, especially since her involvement in solving crimes is often a sour note in their relationship.
I have a recipe for sugar cookies I inherited from my Irish grandmother—as well as a couple of her original metal cookie cutters! These cookies are a favorite of my children and grandchildren alike. The other day my grandson who is in college called me to ask for the recipe. He needs it for a globalization class he is taking where they discuss ancestry and tradition. The cookies are usually a tradition at Christmas at our house – all my children would help cut out and decorate them when they were younger, and then my grandson took over that task. These cookies are great whatever the season, however, depending on the cookie cutters you use.
Ingredients for the cookies:
½ cup Irish butter, softened
½ tsp vanilla
1 cup sugar
½ tsp salt
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp milk
1 ½ cup flour – plus ¼ cup (or as needed) to roll out
Colored granulated sugar for decorating
Mix the butter and sugar, then add egg, milk, and vanilla, and mix that in.
Sift together dry ingredients in another bowl.
Add dry ingredients to butter mixture and mix well.
Roll out and cut. (I usually refrigerate dough for about 1 hour or even overnight to make easier to handle)
After cutting out cookies decorate with colored granulated sugar and place them on a greased cookie sheet.
Bake at 400 for seven to ten minutes.
The recipe says it makes 18 cookies, but I have found it depends on the size of your cookie cutters. (And I usually double the recipe!)
Leave a comment about your family’s favorite cookie recipe to be entered in the drawing for Ex’d Out!
About BORROWED TROUBLE: After the murder of her ex-husband is solved, visiting nurse Melanie Bass is confident she will never again cross paths with Detective Sunny Cody. She is shocked when the detective suddenly shows up on her doorstep to ask Melanie for a favor. What starts out as an assignment Detective Cody assures her is quick and simple, instead soon puts Melanie, her dog Bruno, and Detective Cody herself in serious jeopardy. Melanie quickly becomes increasingly enmeshed in an investigation involving drugs, lies, and danger.
To make things worse, Melanie’s good friend Lynn Duncan is being stalked by an unknown man, and Melanie’s love life is threatened by her commitment to helping Detective Cody. While compelled by what she feels is a moral and personal obligation to be involved with Detective Cody’s investigation, Melanie must also find a balance in her personal life and avoid putting her life in further jeopardy.
About the author: Christine Falcone’s short stories have appeared in publications such as Imagine, Larcom Review, and Deadfall: Crime Stories by New England writers. After working for nearly forty years as an RN in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Christine is delighted that retirement coincided with the publication of her first full length mystery, EX’D OUT, published in October 2022. The second in the series, BORROWED TROUBLE will be out in October 2023. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.
She lives on the Connecticut Shoreline with her family and a dog who is not nearly as well behaved as Bruno, the beloved canine in her novel. Read more on Facebook and Christine’s website.
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