To make the fruit cup, you'll need three colors of fresh or canned fruit: white, orange, and yellow, the colors of candy corn. 
In my first attempt at the fruit cup, I started with a layer of candy corn on the bottom, figuring that would give the grandkids an incentive to finish their fruit. I also tucked some candy corn in the hole where the pineapple core was. Not a good idea. The candy's food coloring bled into the fruit. I ended up with sticky pinkish stuff at the bottom of the cup.
To enter a drawing for my Halloween-themed Five-Ingredient Mystery, Crypt Suzette, and three other cozy mysteries by Victoria Abbott, Lucy Burdette, Maddie Day, leave a comment on yesterday's post about Halloween.
When a murder masquerades as an accident, Granddad's ghost-busting and Val's foray into a haunted house turn up clues to the killer.
As Val caters a Halloween party at Bayport’s bookshop, a group of would-be writers, the Fictionistas, compete in the costume contest. One of them, the secretive Suzette, rents a spare room from Granddad. When she’s found dead after a hit-and-run, the Fictionistas accuse one other of murder. Did one of them kill her or was her death rooted in the past she’d worked hard to escape? Val and Granddad must pull off a Halloween ruse to rip the mask off a murderer.
"Granddad is a hoot to live with, and his jobs as a food reviewer and part-time detective provide endless possibilities for fun and murder." -- Kirkus Review of Crypt Suzette
Directions
1.Chop the white fruit for the small lower layer in small pieces. Squeeze lemon juice over chopped pieces of apple or pears to keep them from turning brown. Cover the bottom of the cup with the white layer.
2, Add the orange layer next. Either fresh or canned Mandarin oranges work well. Layer the orange sections on top of the white fruit.
3. For the top layer, use pineapple rings if your glass cup is wide enough for them. For a narrower glass, cut the pineapple in chunks.
4. If desired, top the fruit cup with a Peeps marshmallow ghost on a small wood skewer.
For my second attempt, I went with straight fruit and chopped a pear instead of an apple for a whiter color.
The ghost declares my second attempt the winner!
For a more traditional holiday recipe, visit my Halloween post from last year when I made skeletal gingerdead man cookies.
The book giveaway associated with that post is long over, but here's another chance to win books. This contest closes on Wednesday, Oct 20, 2021.
Have you ever made a special Halloween snack or do you prefer tried-and-true Halloween candy?
🎃 🎃 🎃
As Val caters a Halloween party at Bayport’s bookshop, a group of would-be writers, the Fictionistas, compete in the costume contest. One of them, the secretive Suzette, rents a spare room from Granddad. When she’s found dead after a hit-and-run, the Fictionistas accuse one other of murder. Did one of them kill her or was her death rooted in the past she’d worked hard to escape? Val and Granddad must pull off a Halloween ruse to rip the mask off a murderer.
"Granddad is a hoot to live with, and his jobs as a food reviewer and part-time detective provide endless possibilities for fun and murder." -- Kirkus Review of Crypt Suzette
🍁🍂🍁
Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring café manger Val and her live-wire grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Maya lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Before writing crime fiction, she taught American literature, writing, and detective fiction at Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords.
Visit her website to sign up for her newsletter. One subscriber wins a book each time a newsletter goes out. Check out the easy recipes, mystery history and trivia, and a free culinary mystery story on the website.
