Book Review of Sugar Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke

Book Review of Sugar Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke 

 From goodreads.com:  

"The holidays are the icing on the cake for bakery owner Hannah Swensen. Surrounded by her loved ones, she has all the ingredients for a perfect Christmas until murder is added to the mix...
When it comes to holidays, Minnesotans rise to the occasion and the little town of Lake Eden is baking up a storm with Hannah leading the way. The annual Christmas Buffet is the final test of the recipes Hannah has collected for the Lake Eden Holiday Buffet Cookbook.
While Hannah is baking the day s goodies at The Cookie Jar, the evening s plans begin to jell. Start with the best Lake Eden culinary creations, add two of Hannah s sometime boyfriends, a pinch of her ready-to-pop pregnant sister, and a dash of her mother and new significant other, an actual British lord, and what do you get? A recipe for disaster, but the juiciest ingredient is yet to come...
The recently divorced Martin Dubinski arrives at the buffet with his new Vegas showgirl wife all wrapped up in glitter and fur. His ex-wife, however, seems as cool as chilled eggnog. And when Hannah s mother s antique Christmas cake knife disappears, its discovery in the d�colletage of the new and now late Mrs. Dubinski puts the festivities on ice.
With everyone stranded at the community center by a blizzard, Hannah puts her investigative skills to the test, using the ingredients at hand: half the town of Lake Eden and a killer. Now, as the snowdrifts get higher, it s up to Hannah to dig out all the clues and make sure that this white Christmas doesn t bring any more deadly tidings.
Includes over twenty-five original recipes for you to try! (less)

Paperback, 352 pages

Published October 1st 2005 by Kensington (first published January 1st 2004)"

Leona's Review of Sugar Cookie Murder

This was a fast read by Joanne Fluke of another mystery from the Hannah Swensen series.  Hannah has once again found a dead body and begins to help solve the mystery.  This is the 6th book in the series and I have read many of then but not in order. It is a quick read especially when the same characters are in the books. I have the hard copy book that I checked out from my library. There are 341 pages in the book but the mystery part of the book is 168 pages and the rest are recipes.

Today, I made the Rhubarb Bar Cookies I found in the book and the rhubarb is some I picked from my garden this morning. It is good.

I have enjoyed the books by Joanne Fluke and now living in Minnesota helps me relate to the many references to the state. The cold, getting stuck in the snow, hotdishes and potluck dinners are a few.

I loved it when Hannah says that "we" are not pregnant because only the woman is pregnant and I fully agree. We can be expecting a baby but the woman is the pregnant one.

I also loved it when they commented that people in Lake Eden did not steal but there is always a murder.

This is a good read as a cozy mystery. I will give it a 4 star as I enjoyed it very much.

Joanne Fluke may be reached at http://www.joannefluke.com/.   I have emailed her in the past and she did respond.

Leona Olson

www.mnleona.blogspot.com

 

This is one of the recipes in the Sugar Cookie Murder Book. Yes, there is also a recipe for a sugar cookie.

"Cherry Bomb Cookies

Preheat oven to F*, rack in the middle position.

This is my Grandma Ingrid's recipe. She used to make it for special occasions.

3 cups flour (no need to sift)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened

2 eggs

1 cup white (granulated) sugar

2 jars (16 ounces each) maraschino cherries WITH STEMS (about 65 cherries)

small bowl with powdered sugar (confectioner's) sugar

Drain the cherries. Leave them in the strainer while you make the cookie dough.

Put flour, baking powder, soda and salt in a mixing bowl. Stir with a fork until throughly mixed. Cut in the softened butter with two forks, continuing to cut until the mixture looks like coarse corn meal. (You can also do this in a food processor with the steel blade, using cold butter cut in 1/2 inch chunks)

Beat the eggs in a medium-sized bowl and combine them with the sugar.

Add the egg and sugar mixture to the rest of the ingredients and stir until thoroughly mixed.

Extract small bits of dough with your fingers and wrap them around each maraschino cherry, leaving the stem sticking out. Press the bottoms of the dough-wrapped cherries down slightly on a greased baking sheet (4 rows of 4 cherries works nicely).

Bake at 350*F. for 10 minutes (Cookies will be white-if they start to brown, reduce the baking time). Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet. Then dip them in the powdered sugar so that the entire cookie part is covered, but not the stem.

Yield: 5-6 dozen cookies.

Kids love these because they can pick them up by the stem, pop the whole cookie in their mouths, and pull off the stem.

For Christmas, I make these with one jar of red maraschino cherries and one jar of green. Once they're arranged on a platter lines with a paper doily, they're really pretty."

((Leona's idea is I think these would be fun for the 4th of July using the red cherries))