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“AREN’T YOU EXCITED?” Katie asked her cousin Dana while piping the icing on a cupcake. She swirled the creamy frosting over the Holiday Cream Cupcake special of the week. The delicious frosting sent an aroma of ginger, mixed with cinnamon and vanilla that permeated the air.
Mmmm.
It made Dana’s mouth water. It was already four o’clock in the morning, a few days before Christmas.
They had the satellite radio station set to Berry Cove’s FM 99.9 where the DJ played holiday music for twenty-four hours around the clock. Right now, Jingle Bells Rock played and Dana felt all jingly inside for the first time in a long while since her ex-fiancé ran off with her roommate in New York and left her broken-hearted and broke, before she managed to pull her life back together.
Still, holiday cheer and the spirit of the season filled the mood in the town. Companies were more lenient with their staff and festively decorated and filled their offices with dessert treats—Dana should know since their café had gotten so busy they’d had to hire extra staff just to fill all the catering orders for some of the local businesses.
And this was Dana’s first Christmas back in Berry Cove since she’d been a child, since moving back to the small town from New York, after her Grandma Rae passed away, leaving her the Cozy Cupcakes Café. Only, it hadn’t been called that until Dana used her New York copywriting skills and changed the name of the café and a few things, to the chagrin of many naysayers in the beginning.
“Of course, I’m excited,” Dana said, trying hard not to blush as she frosted the Gingerbread Cupcakes with fluffy cream cheese frosting piled high on the cupcake. Just the way Grandma Rae used to make them.
Dana used the same ingredients. For the cupcake she used: 5 tablespoons of unsalted, softened butter; half a cup of white sugar; half a cup of unsulfured molasses; one egg; one egg yolk; a teaspoon of ground cinnamon; one and a quarter teaspoons of ground ginger; one tablespoon of cocoa powder; half teaspoon of ground allspice; half teaspoon of ground nutmeg; quarter teaspoon of salt; one teaspoon of baking soda; half a cup of hot milk; quarter teaspoon of lemon extract; and one and a quarter cups of all-purpose flour.
For the Cream Cheese Frosting Dana used: two tablespoons of unsalted butter; two ounces of cream cheese; two third cups of sifted confectioners’ sugar; and quarter teaspoon of lemon extract.
She had the oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. She lined each batch of twelve cupcakes with cupcake liners. She creamed five tablespoons of the butter with the white sugar. Then she added the molasses and the egg and the egg yolk. She then sifted together the flour, cocoa powder, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and salt. Dana then dissolved the baking soda in the half a cup of hot milk. She added the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and stirred. She then stirred in the hot milk mixture and then poured the batter into the cupcake liners. She’d baked each batch for nineteen minutes.
For the frosting, she creamed the two tablespoons of butter and the cream cheese together, then she added the confectioners’ sugar and beat it in until the mixture was nice and fluffy. She then added the lemon extract and beat the mixture. Only when the cupcakes were cool did she frost the tops.
Cozy Cupcakes Café decided to make two official Christmas cupcakes in addition to the many delicious cupcakes they served. One was the Gingerbread Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and the other was the Christmas Cupcakes piled high with buttercream frosting decorated with colored sugar and filled with rich raspberry jam filling.
Right now, the café had a tall order to fill today since they were supplying the dessert treats for the Mayor’s Christmas Party later this evening.
But that wasn’t what had Dana’s heart all giddy and fluttering inside her chest. A grin curved her lips at the thought of a special guy.
Drop dead gorgeous Detective Troy Anders.
The hot detective had finally asked Dana out on what looked like an official date. Her heart skipped a beat just thinking about it but she tried hard not to let it get to her head.
She never thought she’d ever go out on a date again after what her ex-fiancé did to her.
But then she thought to herself that Troy was probably just being congenial since she’d helped him out on a few of his murder cases recently—by chance, of course. She would just happen to be at the wrong place, right time and each murder involved one of the Cozy Cupcakes Café’s cupcake of the day. She had to save her late Grandma Rae’s café’s reputation, of course. And being an online mystery riddles blogger only gave her more of an interest to figure out the real killers.
“Well, I sure hope that woman is not going to show up,” Katie scolded, wrinkling her nose.
“That woman?” Dana queried. “Oh, wait a minute, I think I know whom you’re referring to.”
Mayor Headly Jones, Berry Cove’s flamboyant mayor was hosting Berry Cove’s Annual Christmas Party at the Town Hall.
All were invited, including the notorious Shags Morefield, the Berry Cove Gazette’s new gossip columnist. Dana really couldn’t believe the Gazette would even hire a gossip columnist. But in this day of internet popularity, the Gazette was trying to save itself from going under in the stiff competition by providing many intriguing new columns and inadvertently hired a former New York columnist, Shags, to join their team. She was only in town for a few months of the year before flying back to New York.
“Of course, she will be there. She’s there every year, Katie,” Inga, the baker, with her thick Russian accent said. Inga shoved another batch of cupcakes into the oven and closed the door. She then set the timer.
“Terry, can you get me another cupcake pan from the back,” Inga said to one of the new temps.
Terry was a student at the university. A nice girl with brunette hair and thick black glasses on her very round face. She was very short and medium built. A pleasant addition to the café during the holiday season. If things worked out, Dana was thinking of hiring Terry permanently as a part time staff.
Dana liked being the boss. It was a change from her pencil-pushing job in the Big Apple. She had the authority to hire staff and make changes to the café as she saw fit. Though in the beginning when she first took over from Grandma Rae after her passing, she’d been met with hostility from everyone, since her grandmother was a favorite in the town and missed dearly.
“Sure thing,” Terry said. She moved quickly to the back and returned with a pan and gave it to Inga. Terry had told Dana earlier that she hoped to open up her own café one day. Dana was all too glad to show her the ropes.
“Well, I don’t want to see her,” Katie continued her conversation with Dana.
“Oh, don’t worry about her, cuz. I would just ignore her. Besides, most people around here know she’s just full of steam. She’d be out of our hair soon.”
“Don’t count on it,” Inga said as she whipped up the batter for another batch of cupcakes.
“What do you mean?” Dana asked puzzled.
“I mean, I heard from a girl who works at Bea’s Salon that she’s looking to move here permanently.”
“Move here? Why?” Katie asked alarmed.
Katie really didn’t like Shags. And for more than one reason. Katie had moved back to Berry Cove from New York after her failed divorce from her college sweetheart. That was years ago before Dana moved back. And guess who was at the heart of Katie’s divorce?
Shags Morefield.
Shags had been the other woman, then ended up dumping Katie’s ex-husband when she got what she wanted—meaning his money and moved on. Dana remembered consoling Katie after her divorce. And Shags had nothing but horrible things to say about poor Katie.
“I thought I got rid of that...woman when I moved back to Berry Cove,” Katie pouted. “She makes my skin crawl.”
“I know. I’m really sorry to hear that, too, Katie,” Dana offered. Dana had been bitten by the “other woman” syndrome in her own relationship once before. And that bite still hurt at times. She could relate to the feeling of betrayal. “She has no right to want to move here.”
“Yes, I know the type,” Inga said while Terry, her assistant listened in with amusement, “She likes to taunt people. Especially the people she’s hurt. And from what I hear, she’s always hunting,” Inga added.
“Hunting?”
“Yes, she’s a hunter. Always digging for dirt, looking for gems of gold. She’s got the goods on almost everyone you can think of. Always digging for dark family secrets, scandals, embarrassing lies...”
Dana shivered inside.
“That’s awful,” Dana commented. “Isn’t it funny, that some people are blind to their own faults?” Dana said while swirling the last cupcake in her batch with freshly made whipped cream. Some touched her finger and she licked it off, the sweet vanilla mixture taste melted on her tongue.
“What do you mean?” Katie asked.
“I mean, Shags Morefield seems to have no conscious. She’s the one that broke up your marriage by sleeping with your then husband and then she turns around and slams you in her column every chance she gets.”
Katie had majored in theatre at NYU and had her first off Broadway show, when Shags—who happened to be a failed actress herself, didn’t waste anytime in ripping all of Katie’s performances to shreds. Shags’ negative reviews were so harsh that it discouraged Katie and eventually she gave up on pursuing theatre—a bad mistake that Katie knew she would have to correct some day.
During Katie’s early theatre days, her husband at the time had gone down to the newspaper office to have a word with the critic about tearing up his wife’s earlier performances, but ended up falling for Shags instead. And of course, Shags continued to bash Katie in her reviews.
Katie eventually, after waiting tables and not getting anywhere, moved back to Berry Cove but she vowed one day to get back into the field. That was shortly after the divorce, of course.
“Tell me about it,” Katie huffed. “I wish I could cancel her gossiping-mouth like I can cancel the subscription to her newspaper,” Katie teased.
Dana grinned. “I’m sure it’s just a rumor that she’s moving to town.”
“Oh, no it’s not,” Inga insisted, kneading more dough for their special Christmas bun. The crew was very busy this morning. So many tasty holiday treats to make before the café opened.
“Inga, you and I both know that as much as we love Bea’s Salon to get our hair or our nails done, what you hear from the customers there may not necessarily be all true.”
“But this bit of information is true. One of Bea’s customers is a real estate agent.”
“Rebecca?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Rebecca said that Shags was looking to move here. She has enough money for a down payment. You know the prices of real estate in New York, right?”
“That’s true,” Dana said, almost to herself. She knew how costly it was to live there—never mind buy a house or condo apartment. It was out of reach for many people. But Berry Cove was another matter. House prices were heavenly there compared to major cities.
“Yes, well, she’s looking at moving back here and I heard that she also has enough money to buy the Berry Cove Gazette.”
“What? That’s impossible.”
“Oh, not really. She came into some money. So I heard.”
“Probably blackmail money,” Katie pouted.
“Oh, Katie. What’s going on here, ladies? This is the holiday season. Tis the season to be merry, not weary,” Dana said.
Dana didn’t want to think about all that right now. And she knew why. “Remember what Grandma Rae used to say about your mood in the kitchen?”
“You’re so right, cuz,” Katie agreed. “Grandma Rae used to always say ‘stay in a good mood when you’re cooking food’,” she grinned.
The girls both laughed with fondness over the memory. Grandma Rae was really a woman of words. That was why Dana came up with the idea to have the cupcakes piled high with whipped cream which could be eaten with a spoon and also included a cozy fun saying on the wrapper of the cupcake of the day to brighten a customer’s day. It would be one of those sayings Grandma Rae used to make up. Today’s saying would be “Make the Holiday Cheer, Everywhere!”
Straight from Grandma Rae’s wisdom to the customer. It was a way of keeping her spirit alive in the hearts of her beloved customers. Dana missed Grandma Rae like crazy, each and every day.
“Darn right, cuz,” Dana added, “Grandma Rae would always tell us that your emotions can transfer to what you’re cooking or preparing for consumption. It’s like we channel our energy to our food or whatever we’re doing. So we have to be mindful of what we’re thinking and how we’re feeling when cooking. Now who would want to consume angry food or food that was prepared when the chef was in a foul mood?”
“Not me, that’s for sure.” Katie laughed, wrinkling her nose.
“Exactly. Now, we’re going to bake these delicious cupcakes for the Mayor’s Christmas Party in a good mood and ignore any negativity out there. Besides, everyone in the town is counting on us. After all, why worry about something we can’t change?”
“True.” Katie and Inga said in unison.
Dana noticed that Terry the temp, didn’t say much at all. Probably because she was new and shy and didn’t want to get involved in office talk as a newbie.
“So, we’re going to think positive going forward, yes?” Dana announced.
“Yes, we sure will,” Katie agreed.
“Good.” Dana got ready to shove another batch of cupcakes in the oven when she felt a chill slither down her spine. It was the raspberry jam filled cupcakes.
“You okay, cuz?” Katie said, noticing Dana’s frozen expression.
“Um...I...I think so.”
Oh, no. There was that feeling again. She looked at the tray of cupcakes. Oh, goodness no. She felt as if something bad was about to happen.