Recipes

Salted Caramel Cupcakes A Buttery Brown Sugar Cupcake Topped with Decadent Dulce de Leche Icing 1/2 cup butter, softened 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar 1/2 cup granulated sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 13/4 cups all-purpose flour 11/4 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup milk Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake pan with paper liners. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Fill paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake 1822 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely. Makes 12 cupcakes.

Dulce de Leche Icing

4 oz package cream cheese 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature 3 cups powdered sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup dulce de leche*

Sea salt Turbinado sugar In a medium-sized mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and butter on high speed for three minutes, until light and fluffy. Mix in powdered sugar and salt until fully combined. Lastly, mix in dulce de leche. Spread or pipe onto cupcakes. Makes three cups of icing. Sprinkle with sea salt and turbinado sugar (optional).

* Dulce de leche is caramelized condensed milk. You can usually find it in your grocery store, in the baking aisle next to the condensed milk.

Pretty in Pinks A Strawberry Cupcake with a Dollop of Vanilla Buttercream, Rolled Around the Edges in Bright Pink Sprinkles 1/2 cup butter, softened 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 13/4 cups flour 11/4 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup milk 1 cup fresh strawberries, chopped Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake pan with paper liners. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. In a separate medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Lastly, fold in the chopped strawberries. Fill paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake 1822 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely. Makes 12 cupcakes.

Vanilla Buttercream Icing

1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter, softened 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened 1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract 4 cups confectioner's sugar 2 tablespoons milk Pink sprinkles In a large bowl, mix the butters and vanilla until smooth. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating on medium speed. Scrape sides of bowl often. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Pipe or spread onto the cupcakes. Pour bright pink sprinkles onto a plate or a bowl and carefully roll the edges of the frosting in the sprinkles before the frosting sets. Makes 3 cups of icing.

Destiny's Winner A Rich Chocolate Cupcake with Espresso Frosting 113 cups flour 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons baking powder 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 3 tablespoons butter, softened 11/2 cups sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup milk Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake pan with paper liners. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa, and salt and set aside. In a separate large bowl, use an electric mixer to cream the butter and sugar, adding eggs one at a time. Mix in the vanilla. Add in the flour mixture alternately with the milk until well blended. Fill paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake 1822 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely. Makes 12 cupcakes.

Espresso Buttercream Icing

1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter, softened 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened 1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract 2 teaspoons espresso powder 4 cups confectioner's sugar 2 tablespoons milk Chocolate-covered espresso beans Espresso beans (optional) In a large bowl, mix the butters, vanilla, and espresso powder until smooth. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating on medium speed. Scrape sides of bowl often. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Pipe or spread onto cupcakes. Top with a chocolate-covered espresso bean (optional). Makes 3 cups of icing.

Lupe's Winner A Macadamia Nut Cupcake with a Tasty White Chocolate Icing 11/2 cups flour 11/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup butter, softened 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 eggs 1/2 cup milk 1 cup chopped macadamia nuts Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake pan with paper liners. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a separate large bowl, use an electric mixer to cream together sugar, butter, and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time. Add in the flour mixture alternately with the milk until well blended. Lastly, fold in the macadamia nuts. Fill paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake 1822 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely. Makes 12 cupcakes.

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

4 oz cream cheese, softened 1/4 cup butter, softened 1 oz white chocolate, melted and slightly cooled 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 3 teaspoons milk or cream 3 cups confectioner's sugar White chocolate curls (optional) In a large mixing bowl, cream together cream cheese, butter, and melted chocolate. Beat in vanilla and milk, then slowly add confectioner's sugar until the frosting reaches your desired consistency. Pipe or spread onto cupcakes. Makes 3 cups of icing. Decorate with white chocolate curls (optional).

Dear Reader,

Well, the shenanigans certainly continue for our girls, Mel and Angie, in the bakery, don't they? They'll be back with more mayhem and murder in their next Cupcake Bakery Mystery coming soon.

In the meantime, I'd like to invite you to go on vacation with me in . . . wait for it . . . London! A charming hat shop in Notting Hill called Mim's Whims, with its irrepressible owners Scarlett Parker and Vivian Tremont, is the setting for my newest mystery series, appropriately called the Hat Shop Mysteries.

In Cloche and Dagger, the first Hat Shop Mystery, Scarlett Parker's life implodes in America and much to her horror her public meltdown goes viral on the Internet. At her cousin Viv's urging, Scarlett catches the first plane across the pond to join her cousin in the hat shop their grandmother bequeathed to them. Scarlett thinks she'll be able to regroup and get her life back under control in merry old England. Yeah, not so much.

In the second book in the Hat Shop Mysteries, Death of a Mad Hatter, the cousins take on the task of designing hats for an Alice in Wonderland themed charity tea. Little do they know that the cast of characters they are about to meet are as strange and bewildering as those from Lewis Carroll's original tale, but with one big difference: One of them will not survive the party. With the police looking at the milliners' hats for a clue about the murder, it is up to Scarlett and Vivian to find the real killer before the cousins are capped for good.

Turn the page for a preview of Death of a Mad Hatter, available May 2014 from Berkley Prime Crime. You can preorder it now from all major retailers at jennmckinlay.com.

Happy reading!

Jenn "Take it off, Scarlett. You look like a corpse."

My cousin Vivian Tremont stared at me in horror as if I had in fact just risen from the grave.

"Don't hold back," I said. "Tell me how you really feel."

"Sorry, love, but pale redheads like you should avoid any color that has gray tones in it," Viv said. Then, because calling me a corpse wasn't clear enough, she shuddered.

I crossed the floor of our hat shop to the nearest freestanding mirror. Our grandmother, Mim, had passed away five years ago and left her shop, Mim's Whims in London, to the two of us. Viv was the creative genius behind the hats, having grown up in Notting Hill just down the street from the shop, while I was the people person-you know, the one who kept the clients from running away from Viv when she got that scary inspired look in her eye.

Being raised in the States, I had chosen to go into the hospitality industry. Things had been going well until I discovered that my rat-bastard boyfriend, whose family happened to own the hotel of which I was assistant manager, was still married. At Viv's urging, I escaped that fiasco and came here to take up my share of the business. So far London had done quite a lot to take my mind off of my troubles. Viv in particular kept me on my toes, making sure I didn't lose my people skills.

In fact, just the other day she'd gotten swept up in an artistic episode and tried to convince the very timid Mrs. Barker that wearing a hat with two enormous cherries the size of beach balls connected by the stems and with a leaf the size of a dinner plate would be brilliant. It was-just not on Mrs. Barker's head.

It had taken me an afternoon of plying Mrs. Barker with tea and biscuits and yanking Viv into the back room and threatening to put her in a headlock to get them to an accord. Finally, Mrs. Barker had agreed to a black trilby with cherries the size of golf balls nestled on the side and Viv had been satisfied to work her magic on a smaller scale.

I ignored my dear cousin's opinion of my complexion and stood in front of the mirror and tipped the lavender sunhat jauntily to one side. It was mid-May and summer was coming. I'd been looking for a hat to shade my fair skin from the sun and being a girly-girl, I do love all things pink and purple.

"Oh, I can just see the headstone now," a chipper voice said from behind me. "Here lies Scarlett Parker, mistakenly buried alive when she wore an unfortunate color of sunhat."

I glared at the reflection of Fiona Felton, Viv's lovely young apprentice, glancing over my shoulder in the mirror.

Viv laughed and said, "I can dig it."

"In spades," Fee quipped back.

"Fine," I said. I snatched the hat off of my head. "Obviously, the hat is a grave mistake."

They stopped laughing.

"Oh, come on, that was a very good quip," I said. They shook their heads in denial.

"You need to bury that one and back away," Viv said. They both chortled.

"I still think you're being a bit harsh," I said. I replaced the pretty hat on its stand and shook out my long auburn hair.

"No, harsh was that hat on your head," Fee said. She smiled at me, her teeth very white against her cocoa colored skin. Her corkscrew bob was streaked with blue-she was always changing the color-and one curl fell over her right eye. She blew it out of her face with a puff of her lower lip.

"But I need a sunhat," I complained.

"Plain straw would look very nice," Viv said. "Perhaps with a nice emerald green ribbon around the crown."

"I'm tired of plain and I'm sick of green."

I knew I sounded a tad whiney, but I didn't care. I was jealous of Fee and Viv. Fee's dark coloring looked good with everything and so did Viv's long blonde curls and big blue eyes, both of which she had inherited directly from Mim. I only got the eyes. So unfair!

The front door opened and I glanced up with my greet- the-customer-smile firmly in place. It fell as soon as I recognized the man who walked into the shop.

"Oh, it's you, Harry," I said with a sigh.

Harrison Wentworth, our business manager, raised an eyebrow at my unenthusiastic greeting.

"Harrison," he corrected me. "Pleasure to see you, too, Ginger."

I felt my face get warm at the childhood nickname. Yes, Harry and I had a history, one in which I did not come out very well.

"Sorry. I didn't mean anything by it," I said. "I was just hoping you were a customer so everyone could stop telling me how gruesome I look in lavender."

"I didn't say you were gruesome," Viv corrected me as she rearranged the hats on one of the display shelves. "I said you looked like a corpse. Good morning, Harrison."

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

"Now that's a proper greeting," Harrison said, giving me a meaningful look.

"Hello, Harrison," Fee said. She also kissed his cheek and smiled at him. He returned the grin. I glanced between them. They seemed awfully happy to see each other.

Harrison was Viv's age, two years older than my modest twenty-seven years, but Fee was only twenty, entirely too young to be considering a man in his advanced years, in my opinion. And no, it had nothing to do with the fact that Harry and I had a history, if you consider me standing him up for an ice cream date when I was ten and he was twelve and breaking his adolescent heart a history. I did mention that I didn't come out very well in it, didn't I?

As Fee stepped back, Harrison looked at me expectantly. Before I could stop myself, I found myself looking at him from beneath my lashes and giving him my very practiced, secretive half smile. Sure enough, the man looked as riveted as if I had just propositioned him.

Ugh! Honestly, I am a dreadful flirt. It's like breathing to me and I don't discriminate. I flirt with everyone, kids, pets, old ladies, men, you name it. Probably that's why the hospitality industry was such a natural fit for me. I am very good at managing people.

I blame my mother. After thirty years of marriage, she still has my dad wrapped around her pinky and it's not just because of her charming British accent, either. My mother is an incorrigible flirt and my dad a complete sucker.

After my last relationship disaster, I made a promise to myself that I would go one whole year without a boyfriend. So far it had been two months. Prior to that, the longest I'd gone was two weeks. Shameful, I know.

I shook my head and forced myself to give Harrison my most bland expression. He looked confused. I really couldn't blame him. I was probably giving him emotional whiplash.

Mercifully, the front door opened again and this time two ladies entered. I charged forward, relieved to escape the awkward moment.

"Good afternoon, how may I help you?" I asked.

"You're not Ginny." The older of the two women frowned at me.

"No, I'm Scarlet and this is my cousin Vi-"

"Ginny!" The older lady shot forward with surprising speed and hugged my cousin close.

Viv looked startled, but she hugged the woman back, obviously not wanting to offend her.

I quickly examined the two ladies. The older one had gray hair and wore a conservative print dress that had Marks & Spencer all over it, while the younger woman, a pretty brunette who looked to be somewhere in her twenties, was much more fashion forward, wearing a tailored Alexander McQueen chemise.

"You haven't aged a day," the older woman exclaimed. She cupped Vivian's face and examined her closely. "How have you managed that?"

Viv gave an awkward laugh, as if she was quite sure the woman was teasing her, but the woman frowned. "No, really, how have you managed it?"

"Um, my name is Vivian," she said. "I think you might be confusing me with my grandmother Eugenia, everyone called her Ginny."

The older woman stared at her for a moment and then she laughed and said, "Oh, Ginny, always such a joker. Didn't I tell you, Tina?"

"You did at that, Dotty," the other woman said as she stood watching.

"Oh, heavens, where are my manners?" Dotty said. "Ginny, this is my daughter-in-law, Tina Grisby. Tina, this is my friend, the owner of Mim's Whims, Gi-"

"Everyone calls me Viv," Vivian interrupted as she extended her hand to Tina. "This is my cousin Scarlett, our apprentice Fiona, and our man of business Harrison."

"You changed your name?" Dotty asked Viv. "How extraordinary."