Embrace the spirit of fall with this newest cozy mystery release from Darci Hannah. As you dive into this delightfully spooky tale, elevate your reading experience with a batch of Pumpkin Scones with Maple Glaze.
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ½ cup cold unsalted butter, cubed
- ½ cup chopped pecans (optional)
- ½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
- ½ cup pumpkin purée
- ⅓ cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Maple Glaze (recipe follows)
- Preheat oven to 350°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Using a pastry blender or 2 forks, cut butter into flour mixture until it resembles small pea-sized crumbs. Stir in pecans, if desired.
- In a smaller bowl, whisk together brown sugar, pumpkin purée, cream, egg, and vanilla extract. Add to dry ingredients, stirring until dough is evenly moist. (If dough is too sticky, add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time.)
- Turn out dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Shape dough into an approximately 1-inch-thick circle. Using a floured knife, cut dough into 8 even wedges. Place scones 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheet.
- Bake until scones are crispy on the outside and soft in the middle, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer scones to a wire rack, and let cool completely.
- Once scones have cooled, top each scone with Maple Glaze. Let the glaze set, and then enjoy!
- 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
- 2 to 3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
- 1 teaspoon maple extract
- In a small bowl, whisk together confectioners’ sugar, cream, and maple extract. Use immediately.
It’s Halloween weekend and Beacon Harbor, Michigan, has a packed schedule of events, including the Pumpkin Pageant, featuring humans and their canine counterparts. For treats, there’s plenty of pumpkin goodness from bakery/café owner and local lighthouse resident Lindsey Bakewell. But someone wants to spoil the fun with a deadly trick.
Lindsey prefers to keep her bakeshop’s Halloween décor light and autumnal, rather than gruesome and ghoulish. But everyone knows her lighthouse home is haunted. Some intrepid teens have even tried to break in to witness the resident ghost themselves. Dreading Halloween night, Lindsey reluctantly allows her influencer and podcaster best friend, Kennedy, to host a live ghost-hunting investigation in the lighthouse, conducted by a professional team. Protective of her ghost, Lyndsey is understandably nervous about what they might uncover.
The segment is uneventful—until things take a terrifying turn. The team freaks out. As Kennedy joins the mad dash outside, she bumps into what looks like the prankster teens’ creepy clown costume hanging from a tree. But when Lindsey’s dog, Wellington, begins to whine, they make a grim discovery: the clown is no dummy. It’s a corpse.
Now Lindsey and company will need to keep their cool if they want a ghost of a chance to solve the murder—and see another Halloween.
Darci Hannah is a native of the Midwest and currently lives in a small town in Michigan. Darci is a lifelong lover of the Great Lakes, a natural wonder that inspires many of her stories. When Darci isn’t baking for family and friends, hiking with her furry pals, Ripley and Finn, or concocting her next cozy mystery, she can be found wandering around picturesque lakeside villages with her hubby, sampling baked goods, and breaking for coffee more often than she should. For more recipes and information about the Beacon Bakeshop Mysteries, visit her at www.DarciHannah.com.
Liked Peg and Rose Stir Up Trouble. A good read.