Killer Sweet Tooth Read online

  Lora’s Good-for-You Banana Pudding

  (Submitted by Lora Rasnake)

  3 cups fat-free (skim) milk

  2 boxes (4-serving size each) Jell-O French Vanilla Instant Pudding and Pie Filling mix

  4 containers (6 ounces each) Yoplait 99% Fat-Free Banana Crème or French Vanilla yogurt

  8 ounces frozen fat-free whipped topping, thawed

  48 reduced-fat vanilla wafer cookies

  6 small bananas, sliced

  Additional banana slices for garnish, if desired

  In large bowl, beat milk and pudding mix with electric mixer on low speed until well mixed, then beat in yogurt. Fold in whipped topping. Place 24 vanilla wafers in a single layer in ungreased 13 x 9–inch (3-quart) glass baking dish. Spoon half of the pudding mixture over wafers. Place 6 sliced bananas over pudding mixture. Spoon remaining pudding mixture over bananas. Arrange remaining 24 vanilla wafers over top of pudding. Cover; refrigerate at least 3 hours but no longer than 8 hours. Just before serving, garnish with additional banana slices.

  Regina’s Peanut Butter and Banana Cake

  (Submitted by Regina Shinall)

  CAKE INGREDIENTS

  ½ cup butter, softened

  1½ cups sugar

  2 eggs

  1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 to 3 medium)

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  2 cups all-purpose flour

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  ½ cup 2% milk

  FROSTING INGREDIENTS

  1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

  1/3 cup 2% milk

  1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

  3 cups confectioners’ sugar

  To prepare the cake, in a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in bananas and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, and baking soda; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition.

  Transfer to a greased 13 x 9 (3 quart) baking pan. Bake at 350 for 30–35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

  For frosting, in a small bowl, beat peanut butter, milk, and vanilla until blended; gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Spread over cake.

  How to Make a 3D Cake Template

  Print out a photo of the item you’d like to make. Enlarge the photo to the desired size. Use onionskin paper to trace the photo; more than one sheet might be necessary depending on the size of the cake you’re making. Tape the onionskin or tracing paper onto a piece of thin cardboard or poster board. Carefully cut around the design.

  With Daphne’s car cake, she used templates to do each side. A separate template would have to be done for the front and back of the car. Of course, some bakers are able to carve the design freestyle!

  Read on for an excerpt from the first

  Daphne Martin mystery,

  Murder Takes the Cake

  Available now from Gallery Books!

  CHAPTER

  one

  MRS. WATSON?” I called, banging on the door. I glanced up at the ever-blackening clouds. Although I had Mrs. Watson’s cake in a box, it would be just my luck to get caught in a downpour with it. This was my third attempt to please her, and I couldn’t afford another mistake with the amount she was paying me. Whoever said “the customer is always right” had obviously never dealt with Yodel Watson. I should’ve listened to all those people who’d told me Yodel was the meanest old lady in town. But she was my first customer. How could I turn away her business?

  I heard something inside the house and pressed my ear against the door. A vision of me falling and dropping the cake when Mrs. Watson flung the door open made me rethink it, though, and I pulled my head away from the door.

  “Mrs. Watson?” I called again.

  “Come in! It’s open! Come in!”

  I tried the knob and the door was indeed unlocked. I stepped inside but didn’t see Mrs. Watson. “It’s me—Daphne Martin. I’m here with your cake.”

  “Come in! It’s open!”

  “I am in, Mrs. Watson. Where are you?”

  “It’s open!”

  “I know! I—” Gritting my teeth, I walked through the foyer to the kitchen and placed the cake on the table. A quick glance around the room told me Mrs. Watson wasn’t in there, either.

  “It’s open!”

  Man, could this lady get on your nerves. The voice sounded like it came from the left, so I moved slowly down the hallway.

  “Mrs. Watson?” I poked my head inside a den on the right.

  “Come in!”

  I turned toward the voice. A gray parrot was sitting on a perch inside its cage.

  “It’s open!” the bird squawked.

  “I noticed.” I’d heard about parrots that could mimic their owners’ voices to perfection, but this was the first time I’d experienced it. Great. She’s probably not home, and I’ll get arrested for breaking and entering . . . though, technically, I didn’t break.

  It was then that I saw Mrs. Watson lying on the sofa in a faded, navy blue robe. A plaid blanket covered her legs. She appeared to be sleeping, but I’d heard the parrot calling when I was outside. There’s no way Mrs. Watson could have been in the same room and slept through that racket.

  I stepped closer. “Are you okay?” Her pallor already answered my question. Then the foul odor hit me.

  I backed away and took my cell phone out of my purse. “I’m calling 9-1-1, Mrs. Watson. Everything’s gonna be all right.” I don’t know if I was trying to reassure her or myself.

  Everything’s gonna be all right. I’d been telling myself that for the past month.

  AFTER CALLING 9-1-1, I lingered in the doorway in case Mrs. Watson woke up and needed something before the EMTs arrived. Mrs. Watson was old enough that she could be my mother lying there.

  I turned forty this year. Forty seems to be a sobering age for every woman, but it hit me especially hard. When most women get to be my age, they at least have some bragging rights: successful career, happy marriage, beautiful children, nice home. I had none of the above. My so-called accomplishments included a failed marriage, a dingy apartment, and twenty years’ service in a dead-end job. Cue the violins.

  So when my sister Violet called and told me about a “charming little house” for sale near her neighborhood, I jumped at the chance to leave all the dead ends of central Tennessee and come home to southwest Virginia. Surely something better awaited me here.

  I’d already moved into my house—which seems to have come with a one-eyed stray cat—and started my own cake decorating business. It took a while to come up with a name and a logo, have business cards made, set up a website, and do other “fun” administrative duties, but now I was settled. The cake and cupcakes I’d made for my niece and nephew to take to school on Halloween had been a hit, leading to some nice word-of-mouth advertising and a couple orders. Leslie’s puppy dog cake and Lucas’s black cat cupcakes were the first additions to my website’s gallery.

  But my first real customer was Yodel Watson. She’d considered herself a world-class baker in her heyday but no longer had the time or desire to engage in “such foolishness.”

  “I want you to make me a cake for my Thanksgiving dinner,” she’d said. “Nothing too gaudy. I want my family to think I made it myself.”

  My first two attempts had been refused: the first cake was too fancy, and the second was too plain. I’d been hoping—praying—the third time would be the charm. I laboriously prepared a spice cake with cream cheese frosting and decorated it with orange and red satin ribbons for a bottom border and a red apple, arranged in a flower petal pattern, on top. And now it was on Mrs. Watson’s kitchen table while Mrs. Watson herself was slumped on her sofa as deflated as a December jack-o’-lantern. Oh, yeah, things were looking up.

  I was startled out of my reverie by a sharp rap.

  “EMT!”


  “Come in! It’s open!” the bird called.

  I hurried to the living room to open the door, and two men with a stretcher brushed past me.

  “Where’s the patient?” one asked.

  “Back here.” I showed them the way to the den, and then got out of the way.

  “Come in!”

  I moved next to the birdcage. “Don’t you ever shut up? This is serious.”

  “I’ll say,” agreed one of the EMTs. “Are you the next of kin?”

  “Excuse me?” My hand flew to my heart. “She’s dead?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Are you related to her?”

  While one EMT questioned me, the other was on his radio asking dispatch to send the police and the coroner.

  “I barely know her,” I told the man. “I just brought the cake.”

  AFTER CALLING IN the reinforcements, the EMTs sent me to the formal living room. They didn’t get any argument from me. I sat down on the edge of a burgundy wingback chair and studied the room.

  There was an elaborate Oriental rug over beige carpet, a pale blue sofa, and a curio cabinet with all sorts of expensive-looking knickknacks. Unlike the messier den, this room was spotless. Except for a small yellow stain I noticed near my right foot. Parrot pee, I supposed.

  “Ms. Martin?”

  I looked up at one of the deputies. “Yes?”

  “I’m Officer Hayden. I need to ask you some questions.”

  “Um . . . sure.” This guy looked young enough to be my son—scratch that, nephew—but he still made me nervous.

  “Tell me about your arrival, ma’am.”

  Ma’am. Like I was seventy. Of course, when you’re twelve, everybody looks old.

  I cleared my throat. “I, uh, knocked on the door, and someone told me to come in. I thought it was Mrs. Watson, so I opened the door and came inside.” I pointed toward the kitchen table. “I’m Daphne of Daphne’s Delectable Cakes.” I patted my pockets for my business card holder but realized I must have left it in the car. “I brought the cake.”

  Officer Hayden took out a notepad. “Let me get this straight. Someone else was here when you arrived?”

  “No . . . no, it was the bird. The bird hollered and told me to come in.”

  He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “I thought it was her, though,” I added quickly. Please, God, don’t let me get arrested. “It told me the door was open, and it was.”

  Officer Hayden opened his eyes.

  Never being one to know when to shut up, I reiterated, “I just brought the cake.”

  ABOUT AN HOUR later, I pulled into my own driveway. I didn’t make it to the front door before I heard my next-door neighbor calling to me.

  “Hello, Daphne! I see you’re bringing home another cake.”

  “Afraid so.”

  She beat me to the porch. For a woman in her sixties, Myra Jenkins was pretty quick. “What was wrong with this one?”

  I handed Myra the cake and unlocked the door. “Um . . . she didn’t say.”

  “She didn’t say?” Myra wiped her feet on the mat and followed me inside.

  I dropped my purse onto the table by the door. I’d let Myra hang on to the cake. She’d kept the other two rejects; I figured she’d want this one, too.

  I went into the kitchen and took two diet sodas from the fridge. I handed Myra one can, popped the top on the other, and took a long drink before dropping into a chair.

  “This is beautiful,” Myra said, after opening the cake box and peering inside. “What kind of cake is it?”

  “Spice. With a cream cheese icing.”

  Myra ran her finger through the frosting on the side of the cake and licked her finger. “Mmm, this is out of this world. You know the Save-A-Buck sometimes takes baked goods on commission, don’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  She nodded. “They don’t keep a bakery staff, so they sometimes buy cakes, cookies, doughnuts—stuff like that—from the locals and sell them in their store.”

  “I’ll definitely look into that. Thanks.”

  “You should.” She put the lid down on the box. “Are you going to take in this one?”

  “No,” I said. Her poking the side had already nullified that possibility. “Why don’t you take it home?”

  “Thank you. I believe I’ll serve this and the white one with the raspberry filling for Thanksgiving and save the chocolate cake for Christmas.” She smiled. “Do I owe you anything?”

  “Yes. Good publicity. Sing my praises to the church group, the quilting circle, the library group, and anyone else you can.”

  “Will do, honey. Will do.”

  “Um . . . how well do you know Yodel Watson?” I asked cautiously, unsure of how much information I should spill.

  Myra pulled out a chair and sat down. “About as well as anybody in this town, I reckon. Why?”

  “She—” I said quietly. “She’s dead.”

  She gasped. “What happened? Car wreck? You know, she drives the most awful car I’ve ever seen. All the tires are bald, the—”

  “It wasn’t a car wreck,” I interrupted. “When I went to her house, I thought she told me to come in, so—”

  “Banjo.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It was probably Yodel’s bird Banjo tellin’ you to come in.”

  “Right. It was. So, uh, I went in and . . . and found Mrs. Watson in the den.”

  “And she was dead?”

  I nodded.

  “Was she naked?”

  “No! She had on a robe and was covered with a blanket. Why would you think she was naked?”

  Myra shrugged. “When people find dead bodies in the movies, the bodies are usually naked.” She opened her soda. “So what happened?”

  “I don’t know. Since there was no obvious cause of death, she’s being sent for an autopsy.”

  “Were there any opened envelopes lying around? Maybe somebody sent Yodel some of that amtrax stuff.”

  “I don’t think it was anthrax,” I said. “I figure she had a heart attack or an aneurysm or something.”

  “Don’t be too sure.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because Yodel was mean.” Myra took a drink of her soda. “Heck, you know that.”

  I shook my head and tried to steer the conversation away from murder. “Who’d name their daughter Yodel?”

  “Oh, honey.”

  In the short time I’ve lived here, I’ve already learned that when Myra Jenkins says Oh, honey, you’re in for a story.

  “The Watsons yearned to follow in the Carter family’s footsteps,” she said. “Yodel’s sisters were Melody and Harmony, and her brother was Guitar. Guitar Refrain Watson—Tar, for short.”

  I nearly spit diet soda across the table. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, honey, I’m not. Trouble was, nary a one of the Watsons had any talent. When my daughter was little, she’d clap her hands over her ears and make the most terrible faces if we sat behind them in church. Just about anybody can sing that ‘praise God from Whom all blessings flow’ song they sing while takin’ the offering plates back up to the alter, but the Watsons couldn’t. And the worst part was that every one of them sang loud and proud. Loud, proud, and off-key.” She smiled. “I have to admit, though, the congregation as a whole said a lot more silent prayers in church before Mr. and Mrs. Watson died and before their young-uns—all but Yodel—scattered here and there. ‘Lord, please don’t let the Watsons sit near us.’ ‘Lord, please stop up my ears just long enough to deliver me from sufferin’ through another hymn.’ ‘Lord, please give Tar laryngitis for forty-five minutes.’”

  We both laughed.

  “That was ugly of me to tell,” Myra said. “But it’s true! Still, I’ll have to ask forgiveness for that. I always did wonder if God hadn’t blessed any of them Watsons with musical ability because they’d tried to write their own ticket with those musical names. You know what I mean?”
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  “I guess so.”

  “Now, back to Yodel. Yodel was always jealous of China York because China could sing. The choir director was always getting China to sing solos. China didn’t care for Yodel because Yodel was spiteful and mean to her most of the time. It seemed Yodel couldn’t feel good about herself unless she was puttin’ somebody else down.”

  “She must’ve felt great about herself every time I brought a cake over,” I muttered.

  Myra frowned. “I don’t know why she would. Those cakes were beautiful, and I know they’ll be delicious.”

  “Thanks, Myra. I didn’t mean to interrupt your story. Please, go on.”

  “Well, a few years ago, our old preacher retired and we got a new one. Of course, we threw him a potluck howdy-get-to-know-you party at the church. It was summer, and I took a strawberry pie. I make the best strawberry pies. I’d thought about making one for Thanksgiving, but I don’t have to now that you’ve given me all these cakes. I do appreciate it.”

  I waved away her gratitude. “Don’t mention it.”

  “Anyhow, China brought a chocolate and coconut cake. She’d got the recipe out of McCall’s magazine and was just bust-in’ to have us all try it out. Then wouldn’t you know it? In waltzed Yodel with the very same cake.”

  “If she loved to bake so much, I wonder why she gave it up. She told me she didn’t have time to bake these days. Was she active in a lot of groups? I mean, what took up so much of her time?”

  “Keeping tabs on the rest of the town took up her time. When Arlo was alive—he was a Watson, too, of course, though no relation . . . except maybe really distant cousins once or twice removed or something. . . . There’s more Watsons in these parts than there are chins at a fat farm. Is that how that saying goes?”

  “I think it’s more Chins than a Chinese phone book.”

  “Huh. I don’t get it. Anyhow, Arlo expected his wife to be more than the town gossip. That’s when Yodel prided herself on her cooking, her volunteer work, and all the rest. When he died—oh, I guess it was ten years ago—she gave it all up.” Myra shook her head. “Shame, too. But back to the story. Yodel told the new preacher, ‘Wait until you try this cake. It’s my very own recipe.’