Cream Puff Murder (12 page)

Hannah’s 1 st Note: Total time for beating in the eggs by hand is about 5 minutes. A hand mixer also works, but the dough gets caught inside the beaters and you must poke it out with a rubber spatula after each egg has been added to the dough.

Test your dough by lifting out a spoonful and dropping it on top of the rest of the dough. If it stays on top and maintains its shape, it’s ready to bake. If not, beat it some more until it does.

Drop the dough by large spoonfuls onto the cookie sheet. Make 12 mounds of dough, and if they need shaping, do so with damp fingers. Don’t crowd the puffs. They should be at least 3 inches apart. (If you want to make mini puffs, drop small spoonfuls on the sheets, 15 to each sheet.)

Bake at 400 degrees F. for 45 to 50 minutes for the large puffs. (Mini puffs bake 30 to 35 minutes.) DON’T OPEN THE OVEN TO PEEK! Finished cream puffs should feel firm to the touch and be golden brown.

Remove the cream puffs from the oven and pierce the side of each one with the point of a sharp knife . (This isn’t necessary for the mini puffs.) Cool the puffs on the baking sheet, careful to keep them away from drafts.

Cut off the top third of each puff for the lid. Remove any filaments of dough inside the bottoms and fill the puffs with sweetened whipped cream, Emmy’s Vanilla Custard, Great-Grandma’s Chocolate Pudding, ice cream, or any flavor of pie filling. Overfill a bit so the lids sit jauntily on top of the filling. Dust each one with powdered sugar and serve. If you want messy but yummy, you can drizzle a bit of chocolate sauce or icing over the tops.

Hannah’s 2 nd Note: You can make these puffs a day ahead and store them, tightly covered, in a dry place like a kitchen cupboard. You can also fill them, wrap them tightly, and freeze them. Just thaw frozen cream puffs, dust them with powdered sugar, and serve.

Yield: 12 large cream puffs or 30 mini cream puffs.

EMMY’S VANILLA CUSTARD

½ cup white (granulated) sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1/3 cup flour (not sifted)

1 cup whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

2 beaten eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 ounce (1/8 stick) butter

Combine the sugar, salt, nutmeg, and flour in a saucepan off the heat. Stir well.

Gradually stir in the milk and the cream. Blend everything together off the heat.

Turn the burner on medium high heat and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened. (This takes about 10 minutes on my stove.)

Remove the saucepan from the heat, but LEAVE THE BURNER ON.

Break the eggs into a small bowl and quickly beat them with a whisk until they’re well mixed.

Stir several Tablespoons of the hot mixture into the bowl with the eggs. Whisk until it’s incorporated.

Slowly pour the eggs into the saucepan with the hot mixture, whisking it all the while.

Return the saucepan to the heat and stir for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture is very thick.

Remove the saucepan from the heat (you can turn off the burner this time). Add the vanilla, stirring it in quickly. Add the ounce of butter and stir it in until it’s melted.

Let the mixture cool and use it to fill your cream puffs, or pour it into bowls while it’s hot, chill it in the refrigerator, and serve it with a little sweetened whipped cream for a lovely dessert.

Yield: 4 servings of pudding, or filling for 6 to 8 cream puffs.

GREAT-GRANDMA’S CHOCOLATE PUDDING

2 cups whole milk

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup white (granulated) sugar

4 squares unsweetened chocolate (I used Baker’s)

9 eggs yolks, beaten

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 ounces butter

Separate 9 eggs into whites and yolks. If you plan to make Angel Kisses Cookies or Angel Pillows Cookies with the whites, save them in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator. (Each recipe calls for 3 egg whites so you can make a triple batch of either one.) Beat the yolks and set them aside.

Combine the milk, cream, and sugar in a heavy saucepan off the heat. Unwrap 4 squares of unsweetened chocolate, break them into two parts at the indentation, and add them to your saucepan. (Breaking them up causes them to melt faster.)

Heat the mixture over medium high heat on the stove, stirring constantly until little whiffs of steam start to escape and you think it’s about to boil.

Pull the saucepan from the heat, but don’t turn off the burner. This next step will take only a moment or two.

Give the beaten egg yolks a final stir, and add approximately 2 Tablespoons of the chocolate mixture to the egg yolks, stirring it in quickly. (This is called tempering, and it’s important—without it you could have pudding with scrambled eggs inside.)

Off the heat, slowly pour the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture in the saucepan, stirring all the while. When it’s incorporated, put the saucepan back on the heat.

Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to a full boil. (This took about 3 minutes for me on my stove.) Pull the saucepan off the heat, and this time you can turn off the burner.

Quickly stir in the vanilla. Then stir in the butter and continue to stir until the butter is melted.

Let the pudding cool and use it to fill cream puffs, or…

Pour the pudding into 8 bowls and cool in the refrigerator. Top with sweetened whipped cream and serve it for a delicious dessert, or…

Pour the pudding into a cookie crumb, shortbread crumb, or graham cracker crumb pie shell. (You can buy them already prepared at the store if you don’t want to make your own.) Chill and top with sweetened whipped cream for dessert.

Yield: enough filling for 12 to 18 cream puffs, 8 servings of dessert pudding, or a chocolate pie.

N ever had a cat looked so innocent. Hannah stood next to the Kitty Valet and met Moishe’s guileless gaze. “I know your new feeder is lots of fun, but please don’t eat all your kitty crunchies while I’m at work today. Save some for tonight, and maybe even tomorrow. The instructions say that it stores enough food for three days. And that’s for a family with two cats! I know you love to eat, Moishe, but you’re going to get sick if you keep on emptying the whole thing every time I leave.”

He was purring! Her cat was purring! Hannah sighed deeply and gave up lecturing. Chances were that Moishe didn’t understand a word she was saying. And even if he did, he’d ignore her advice the second the door closed behind her.

“Okay, I’m gone,” she said to the cat, who probably wasn’t listening anyway. “I’ll be home around six, and I want to see some food left in that bowl.”

As she walked down the covered staircase to the parking garage, Hannah was frowning. She was worried about Moishe. He’d always been a big eater, but last night when she’d come home from work, she’d found the Kitty Valet that contained his food completely empty.

Even though her feline friend hadn’t been sprawled on his back on the rug groaning, Hannah had still called his vet. It just couldn’t be good for Moishe to eat that much food! But once she’d answered several questions that Dr. Bob had asked about Moishe’s behavior, he’d assured her that once the novelty of unlimited food without human intervention had worn off, Moishe’s eating habits would return to normal.

It was cold this morning, five below zero according to Jake and Kelly on KCOW Radio, and Hannah wished she’d asked Andrea to pick her up. Her sister’s Volvo had heated seats, a welcome luxury in the Minnesota winter. She wondered, idly, how much it would cost to install them in her cookie truck but decided it would probably be several times more than she could afford.

The radio helped her to keep her mind off the cold. Hannah listened to one more pseudo news item on The News at O’Dark-Thirty, something about a pet horse who came inside the farmhouse whenever he smelled cookies baking. That didn’t sound so unusual to Hannah, especially if the cookies were carrot cookies. And thinking about carrot cookies reminded her that she’d promised to bake Terry’s Carrot Cake Cookies for Grandma Knudson, who was trying to convince her grandson, the reverend, that they were an excellent way for him to get his vegetables.

Another fifteen shivery minutes later, and Hannah arrived at the Tri-County Mall. She had a standing appointment to meet Andrea so that they could do their workout routine before class started. She pulled up by the back door at Heavenly Bodies, greeted Andrea, who was just pulling into a parking space, and they went in together.

The only good thing about exercising early in the morning was the absence of noise. The incessant beat of the workout music, the buzz of conversation, the clatter of weights, and the occasional grunt and groan were silenced. The only sound was her own labored breathing as she went through her exercise routine.

Never a big fan of muscle aches and pains, Hannah found this morning’s workout particularly grueling. Perhaps it was because Andrea performed every bend and stretch so effortlessly. She even made her mile on the machine Hannah had nicknamed the Walk to Nowhere look like fun.

“So how’s Moishe’s feeder working out?” Andrea asked, not a whit out of breath despite the fact she was currently duplicating the rigors of cross-country skiing.

“Fine,” Hannah answered, choosing a one-syllable word so that her sister couldn’t hear her pant. They could talk about the fact that Moishe’s feeder was working a little too well later, when she could breathe.

“How long has it been now? Two days?”

“Yes.”

“And he hasn’t pried the tops off yet?”

“No.”

“Well, give him time. He’s defeated every other attempt you’ve made to regulate his food.”

“Right.” Even though she’d uttered only one syllable, Hannah gasped a bit. Luckily, Andrea didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps it was because she’d increased the resistance on her skiing simulator. Hannah could see the little graphic that showed her sister skiing up a thirty percent slope. That was twenty-eight percent steeper than anything Hannah had attempted.

Andrea was silent, and Hannah was grateful. It gave her time to catch her breath. This twenty-minute workout wouldn’t be so bad if she had half the morning to do it. Unfortunately, they were pressed for time. Ronni Ward would be arriving soon for their Classic Body Sculpting class, and that wasn’t a pleasant thought.

“You’re through, Hannah,” Andrea announced, stepping off her ski simulator and taking a seat on what looked like a stationary bike.

“I am?” Hannah slowed to a halt. She’d been so busy thinking about how much she disliked Ronni, the last five minutes of her workout had practically flown past. She glanced up at the clock on the wall and then turned to her sister. “We’ve got twenty-five minutes until class. Do you want me to get you something cold to drink?”

“That sounds good.” Andrea gave a little sigh. “Class used to be fun, but now I’m dreading it. I really wish that Ronni was out of the picture.”

“Me, too. Do you want to skip class today?”

“No way. If we skip, she’s won. And I won’t give her the satisfaction. Just get our drinks and go relax by the pool. I’ll join you as soon as I finish.”

Hannah headed off at a fast clip before her sister changed her mind and thought of other exercises that she should do. Since no one was manning the counter at the Snack Shack, the large area with a fountain in the center surrounded by scores of round tables for eating, drinking and socializing, she fed quarters into a vending machine to get a bottle of zero-carb, zero-calorie strawberry-flavored water for Andrea and a bottle of zero-carb, zero-calorie peach-flavored water for herself. Then she headed down the red-carpeted hallway to the Aqua Therapy room.

The scent of chlorine rolled out to greet her as Hannah opened the door to the area containing the pool and the Jacuzzi. There was the stale odor of sweat in the air, and despite the antiperspirant she’d slathered on earlier, Hannah suspected that she might be contributing to the aroma. Whatever the cause, it was certain that the plug-in room fresheners, specifically designed to mask unpleasant odors, failed to triumph over the potent mix.

The pool looked inviting, with wooden deck chairs arranged in patterns at the shallow end and potted trees dotting the periphery. Hannah removed her shoes and socks and took a seat on the concrete lip of the pool so that she could dangle her feet in the water. They were sore after her trek on the motorized belt of the Walk to Nowhere machine. The pool heater had just kicked in. The pool wouldn’t reach the proper temperature until Aqua Therapy classes started at noon, but that didn’t matter to Hannah. The cold felt good. She opened her bottle of water, took a sip, and sat there feeling righteous about finishing her workout.

Her drink was slightly fizzy, and it tasted a little like peach. Hannah supposed that was all one could ask of a product that was less than a dollar fifty and had no carbohydrates or calories. She sat there for at least five minutes, trying to figure out how the manufacturer could make something taste like peach without actually using peach, but then she realized that her toes had stopped tingling and were numb from the cold.

It was time to warm up. Hannah grabbed her towel and headed to the Jacuzzi to thaw her icy feet, but the first thing she saw when she climbed up the steps to enter the latticework gazebo was something that stopped her cold. There was a red-colored smear on the floor that looked a lot like blood.

Visions of cut feet or skinned knees ran through Hannah’s mind, but then she spotted a lump of red near the end of the smear. She walked closer to take a look. It was a smeared, crushed strawberry! Someone had broken the rules. Although plastic bottles or boxes of drinks were allowed in the pool area and the workout rooms, food was only allowed at the tables in the Snack Shack.

The gazebo was a tropical paradise with hanging plants and potted palms. A bar ran the length of one latticework wall. During regular hours, an employee who sold bottled water manned it. A half-dozen stools were arranged in front of the bar. They provided seating for those who’d tired of the steaming water, but wanted to wait for friends who were still enjoying the heat of the tub. Several stools had been tipped over and Hannah wondered why no one had righted them.