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“You’re not here for a long time, you’re here for a good time. Enjoy your life.”
- Dana Sweet
Cozy Cupcakes Café’s Quote of the Day
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DANA SWEET ADJUSTED her apron as she prepared to make another batch of the delicious coconut cream cupcakes piled high with swirls of rich passion fruit icing.
“Mmm, they smell so yummy,” Katie said as she walked through the swinging doors into the kitchen at the Cozy Cupcakes Café. “The customers are loving the special this week.”
“Thanks, cuz.” It was nine o’clock in the morning and the café had just finished the early morning rush. Dana, Inga and Katie were busy preparing another batch of cupcakes.
The Cozy Cupcakes famous gourmet cupcakes were doing super well in the town. She was thankful to have her own business, thanks to Grandma Rae who left her the café in her will. There was nothing like being your own boss. It sure beat that toxic work environment in her office-politics-fueled job in the ad industry back in New York. No more office bullying or gossip.
Life in the small town of Berry Cove was a sweet change of pace.
She loved handling all aspects of the business. This week she debuted her grandmother’s coconut cream recipes and added a touch of her own ingredients so she wanted to make sure things went as smooth as the whipped icing on her creamy cakes.
Dana had to admit, her mouth watered to taste another sample of her masterpiece.
She was glad she dug out Grandma Rae’s old recipe. The passion fruit infused the icing with real tropical flavor.
Dana garnished the icing on the cupcakes with more shredded coconuts.
For each batch of cupcakes, the prep time was only twenty minutes, fifteen minutes to bake and there were ready in thirty-five minutes including prep time. Not too bad, considering.
Cozy Cupcakes Café prided themselves on making gourmet scrumptious cupcakes just the way Grandma Rae used to make them even before she’d founded the café. Dana was glad she’d moved from New York to help save the café and to continue Grandma Rae’s legacy. Of course, she’d just been betrayed by her now ex-fiancé and her BFF. They’d ran off together and gotten married. So Dana was all too glad to leave the heartbreak behind and embark on a new chapter in her life.
Between running things at the café with her cousin Katie and Inga, the baker, and running her mystery riddles blog, Dana didn’t have time to think about heartbreak. Though her mind often ran on hot and sexy Detective Troy Anders whom she’d bumped into a few times after being caught up in some bizarre murder accusations in the past few months. Now they were sort of dating. And he made her heart skip a beat whenever she saw him.
Katie stifled a yawn.
“Still tired, cuz?” Dana asked.
“How could I not be? You know I love music just like the next chick. Just not at three o’clock in the morning.”
“Why didn’t you call the police and report that girl is disturbing the peace?” Inga chimed in.
“She’s our new neighbor,” Dana added.
“I don’t know how you two could live like that in that old Victorian house and have noisy neighbors like that,” Inga added as she shoved another batch of cupcakes into the oven.
“It’s not that easy Inga. You remember our neighbor, Ms Barinotta?”
“Oh, that cantankerous old woman.”
“Inga!”
“Well, she wasn’t very nice at all. Always bickering. Always miserable.”
“She wasn’t that bad,” Dana tried to defend her late old neighbor.
“Yes, she was,” Inga said. “I always tried to help her in the grocery store when she got her cart stuck and she would accuse me of trying to steal from her and then run her cart into my feet.”
“Oh, she did that to you, too, huh?” Katie grinned, then yawned again.
“I thought she passed away a few weeks ago?” Inga said. “Don’t tell me her spirit is making up noises at three in the morning.”
“Absolutely not!” Dana shot back quickly. The last thing she wanted to think about was spirits. “Actually her niece moved from down South to take over the house.”
“I didn’t know she had any relatives. She was always alone, wasn’t she?”
“Yup. Seems that way,” Dana said. “Anyway, her niece isn’t very chatty but we figured she was just mourning her aunt’s death in her own way by celebrating her life.”
“Every night for the past few weeks?” Katie said, decorating the cupcakes.
“Okay, it is a little bit much.”
“A bit much? The girl has all sorts of people there every day of the week. Doesn’t she work?”
“She’s rich now. She just inherited her aunt’s Victorian house. Do you know how much those babies cost?” Inga added. “You know they say that in Canada, the majority of new millionaires are those who inherited homes from elders or parents—especially in this hot housing market. The wealth is in all that equity in the homes that was purchased in 1940 for $500 and now worth over $2 million. Imagine that! She got lucky.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say lucky. I think she was living with some friends down South when she heard about her aunt’s passing. So she didn’t have a place of her own and you know the cost of housing these days. Even if she sells her aunt’s house, she still has to buy something else in the same hot market that’s going to be just as expensive.”
“True, maybe she can’t afford to buy something else, but it doesn’t mean she can’t afford to have some consideration for her neighbors,” Inga added in her thick Russian accent.
“Well, she’s certainly not doing bad by keeping the staff there?” Katie said.
“Which staff?” Inga asked.
“Her aunt had a young dishy gardener working there every day. He’s still working there,” Katie replied.
“And Katie can’t help but ogle him.” Dana grinned.
“Well, he is very cute. And then I think Ms Barinotta still has the maid coming there to clean the house twice a week.”
“Oh, that’s right. Well, at least her niece doesn’t have to worry about housework. I guess that was all part of the will to keep the staff on.”
Katie shrugged and then took a bite of one of the cupcakes. “Mmmm, these taste so good.”
“Katie!”
“Hey, I need to have some breakfast. I’ve been up since three. What did you put in these babies?”
“You know the recipe, I just added a little something more...” Dana winked.
The recipes were a delight to make. Dana had used one and a quarter cups of cake flour, along with one and a quarter teaspoons of baking powder, a quarter teaspoon of salt, a third cup of unsalted butter, softened, a third cup of white sugar, one large brown egg, half teaspoon of vanilla extract, half cup of unsweetened coconut milk, half cup of sweetened shredded coconut. And for the icing, she used one cup of confectioners’ sugar, two tablespoons of passion fruit nectar and one teaspoon of heavy whipping cream.
Dana had then sifted the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl while the oven was preheating at 350 degrees. She beat the butter, white sugar, egg and vanilla extract in a separate bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until the ingredients were nice and creamy. And this took about two and a half minutes.
Then Dana had beaten the flour mixture into the creamed butter mixture at low speed until it was nice and smooth. She then added the coconut milk and continued to beat until the batter was smooth. She then folded in the shredded coconut. She had then spooned the rounded tablespoons of batter into the cupcake tins and baked them on the center rack for about fifteen to twenty minutes. She had then let them cool for about twenty five minutes. She had mixed the confectioners’ sugar, passion fruit nectar and cream together in a mixing bowl until the mixture was smooth. Then she dipped the tops of cupcakes into the icing, then let the icing set for about two minutes.
“No wonder these cupcakes are going fast,” Katie added after she’d dug into a tasty cupcake. She then washed her hands and wiped them clean on paper towels and prepared to wheel out the cart of cupcakes to the dining room where she would load them into the display case.
“So are you going to talk to this rich neighbor, what is her name again?” Inga said.
“Brenda. Brenda Barinotta. Actually,” Dana said, glancing at her watch, “she’s very late. She was supposed to come in an hour ago to pick up a box of a dozen Coconut Creams for some meeting she’s attending this morning. She told me she’d see me here at eight o’clock because the meeting’s supposed to be out of town in Toronto. She also mentioned that she’s having a party this weekend and needed to order tons more cupcakes for then, too.”
“Another party? Oh, how fabulous for you. More noise,” Inga said, arching her brow.
“So she’s loud and she’s tardy! Lovely.” Katie shook her head, glancing at the wall clock.
“Katie, she probably got held up or something.”
“Yeah, sure. I don’t think so, cuz. Trust the rich to want to make people wait on them. She should have been here an hour ago. She hasn’t even called to tell you she’s running late. You booked the appointment for her to go through your menu to pick out what she wanted for her weekend party. When she does arrive, I’d make her wait.” Katie was not amused.
“If I have time to see her, I’m going to see her, cuz.”
“Let’s hope you don’t regret it,” Inga added. “I mean if she’s really having a big party this weekend, the noise level will be loud right through the night.”
Dana frowned. Inga did have a point.
“Actually, she mentioned it was a birthday party,” Dana said. “I’m assuming it was her own birthday party.”
Dana was not looking forward to the noise this weekend. Being busy at the café and surrounded by hundreds of customers had Dana looking forward to having quiet weekends at the Victorian, as much as she loved the café. She loved the balance, spending time with her little kitty, Truffles, and doing some gardening and light chores around the house. She’d given up on working seven days a week at the café and made sure she was on-call for the weekend staff. Was having Brenda as a neighbor going to wreak havoc on her personal home life? Was Brenda going to be the neighbor from hell?
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LATER THAT MORNING, more customers came in and the orders for the Coconut Cream cupcakes flew off the shelves. Inga was in the kitchen whipping up more batches.
“Told you, it was going to be very popular,” Katie said with a grin after she finished ringing up another order.
“You’re right, cuz,” Dana replied.
“Mmm, these are good,” Gerdie said, taking a bite into her Coconut Cream shortly after she purchased one with a large latte to go.
“Glad you like it, Gerdie.”
“And you used passion fruit, didn’t you?”
“Just wanted to spruce it up a bit with a touch of Caribbean flavor.”
“Well, it’s delicious. I’ll come back to order some more for my weekly bridge club meeting. Oh, the girls will love these.”
Dana beamed with pride. “When do you meet for bridge?”
“Oh, it used to be Friday nights but we’re moving it back to Tuesdays now.”
“Oh, why?”
“Well, you know since Mrs. Barinotta passed.”
“Oh, right. She was a member of your bridge club.”
“She sure was.” Gerdie scrunched up her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“That woman was very competitive. And I caught her cheating once.”
“You did?”
“Now, you know me. I’m not one to gossip...”
Katie snorted a laugh, then when she saw Gerdie Sue and Dana glance in her direction, Katie quickly went back to placing more cupcakes in the display case.
Gerdie, often known as the town gossip, cleared her throat and continued with her conversation.
“Anyway,” Gerdie continued, “Like I said, I’m not one to gossip, but I think she was going through something.”
“Something?”
“You know with her gardener. That young fella.”
“You mean that young guy who does her lawn?”
“I hear he did a little more than her lawn. But anyway, I think the relationship went sour and she got all funny and everything because she would snap at us more when we were playing Bridge. And then she would start cheating, giving codes to her partner across the table.”
“Oh, no. That’s terrible. I thought that was in violation of the rules.”
“It is,” Gerdie took another bite of her Coconut Cream cupcake and finished the entire dessert. “I was about to kick her out,” Gerdie continued with her mouth full.
“What happened?”
“That’s when she beat me to it. She kicked the bucket.”
“Oh dear.”
“Well, it saved me from that aggravation. I know she wouldn’t have taken it very nice.”
“I can imagine.”
“I guess that niece of hers has taken over that lonely house.”
“She sure has.”
“How is she?”
Dana sighed heavily. She really didn’t want to get into talking about Barinotta’s noisy weird niece who was the most inconsiderate neighbor she’d ever known, so she just said, “She’s not bad. I haven’t had a chance to really get to know her yet.”
“Well, just be careful.”
“Be careful? Why?”
“Oh, I heard the apple didn’t fall too far from that tree, if you know what I mean. But since I’m not one to gossip, you didn’t hear it from me, capiche?”
Dana playfully rolled her eyes and grinned. That was Gerdie Sue for you. A wealthy retired twice-widowed woman who had way too much time on her hands. Still, she was often harmless and just liked to chitter chatter and she also looked out for her neighbors. She was good at warning people ahead of time if she heard anything bad was about to happen, because of course she was Berry Cove’s informal human news bulletin. Gerdie Sue knew a lot about everything and everyone in that small town.
“Okay, Gerdie, whatever you say.”
“Anyway,” Gerdie said, glancing around her to make sure nobody else in the café was close enough to listen to their conversation. “There’s something very weird about that family.”
“There is? What?”
Just then they were interrupted when Bea, from Bea’s Salon walked into the café. “Hey there, Gerdie! There you are.” Bea came over to Gerdie and Dana. “Morning Dana. Mmm, those cupcakes smell delicious.” Her eyes darted to the display of fresh new Coconut Cream Cupcakes.
“Thanks. The special this week is Coconut Cream.”
“I must order a few boxes for the salon later for our Customer Appreciation event. I’ll take one now.”
“Great. Katie will ring it up for you.”
“Oh, Bea. How are you?” Gerdie said.
“Good, thanks. Listen, I’m going to have to postpone our Bridge meeting this week.”
“Why?”
“My new boyfriend’s in town,” Bea said, touching her newly styled coif. Her hair was dyed pink this week. It actually matched the aprons at the Cozy Cupcakes Café.
“And speaking of boyfriends, I hear you’re dating that hot and sexy detective,” Bea said, turning to Dana.
Dana flushed. Heat climbed to her cheeks.
“Sshh, keep it down, Bea. You’re embarrassing the child,” Gerdie Sue said.
Dana’s ears burned. How on earth did they know she had been secretly seeing Detective Troy Anders?
“Um...we’re just...friends,” Dana finally said.
“Oh, come on now. Trixie at the salon said she saw you two cuddling up at some Tavern just the other week.”
Great. Trust Bea’s salon spies to be all around town.
“Oh, she must have...um...gotten it wrong. We were just...”
“Speak of the sexy angel.” Bea wiggled her newly waxed brows then gestured to the doorway of the café when the door chime sounded.
Standing there was Detective Troy Anders. And he looked hotter and more delicious every time she saw him, which was, unfortunately, not nearly enough. He’d been very busy working all sorts of crazy unsociable shifts at his job. And Dana had been super busy with the café.
Still, they’d planned to keep their casual dates as quiet as possible.
A top secret.
As much as Dana loved her cousin Katie who always meant her well, wasn’t ready to tell anyone yet.
Dana hated herself for not being able to tell Katie at this stage. But she remembered how heartbroken Katie was when Dana’s last relationship didn’t work out. Grandma Rae hadn’t taken it well, either.
After her humiliation when her ex-fiancé dumped her for her BFF and Dana was left with unsent wedding invitations, she decided she was never going to get her family involved in her love life again. The embarrassment when, or if it didn’t’ work out, made her feel terrible and just added insult to injury.
Detective Troy chose not to tell his mother, who now lived with him since his father’s death, about seeing Dana. He’d also been through the ringer in his last relationship. His ex-fiancée really did a number on his heart, too. They had so much in common.
“Hi, Detective.” Dana tried to play it professional in front of Gerdie, Bea and the other customers.
“Ms Sweet. Can I speak with you for a moment?” A shadow of concern clouded his gorgeous face.
“Oh, no. Is something wrong?”
There was something wrong. She knew it.