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In the opening scene of KNITMARE ON BEECH STREET, my amateur sleuths Pamela Paterson and Bettina Fraser are shocked to discover a dead body when they accompany the town’s welcome committee on a visit to a new resident. After the group has finished talking to the police about the grisly find, a member of the committee invites everyone to her house, where they regain their composure with the aid of coffee and lemon poppy-seed muffins.
I thought it would be fun to invent a cookie version of this popular muffin variety. Pamela loves to bake and prefers to start from scratch when she embarks on one of her yummy creations, but some cooks appreciate short cuts. Here’s a recipe that comes together very quickly, thanks to the fact that it’s based on ready-made cookie dough.
Poppy seeds can be quite expensive if you buy them in the small jars sold with other herbs and spices at the supermarket, but they can be found in bulk online and at some ethnic groceries. I buy mine in bulk and store them in the freezer between baking projects. They keep for ages.
This recipe makes 16 very large cookies. You can divide the dough into smaller portions if you wish to make more, smaller cookies.
Ingredients:
1 tube of Pillsbury’s sugar cookie dough
2 tsp. lemon extract
1/2 cup poppy seeds
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Let the dough come to room temperature. Remove it from the packaging, put it in a medium-sized bowl, and use a knife to cut it into three or four pieces. Sprinkle the lemon extract and the poppy seeds over the dough.
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Use a spoon to blend the lemon extract and seeds into the dough, then knead the dough with your hands until the seeds are evenly distributed. Transfer the dough to a work surface and divide it into four parts.
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Divide each of these parts into four parts and roll each portion into a ball. Arrange the balls at wide intervals on an ungreased cookie sheet. The balls will flatten and spread as the cookies bake.
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Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 11 to 14 minutes, They are done when they are dry on top and just starting to brown around the edges.
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Don’t they look yummy! I hope you enjoy them.
Note: I baked half my dough. I froze the other half to make another batch later.
KNITMARE ON BEECH STREET by Peggy Ehrhart
Knit and Nibble member Pamela Paterson, and her best friend, Bettina, stumble on a body in a once grand Victorian house when they join a group welcoming new residents to Arborville—and must figure out if old secrets killed the new neighbor . . .
When Pamela, Bettina, and their friends show up at the Voorhees House to greet its new owner, they’re met with a most unwelcome sight: a dead body on the kitchen floor. Tassie Hunt just inherited the old Victorian, which had been occupied by a reclusive widow for many years and had a reputation for being haunted. But Tassie would have been unlikely to be spooked since her career involved debunking such paranormal phenomena.
Her demise sets off a new flurry of gossip and ghostly speculation in the New Jersey town, of course—and it’s tempting to think spirits were indeed involved considering there’s zero evidence so far of foul play. A nosy neighbor reports strange lights and sounds, and a man obsessed with the Victorian era starts photographing the place from the street. But it won’t take long before Pamela and Bettina are moving in on a killer . . .
Mystery Amateur Sleuth | Mystery Cozy | Mystery Culinary [Kensington, On Sale: November 28, 2023, Mass Market Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781496738868 / eISBN: 9781496738882]
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About Peggy Ehrhart
Peggy Ehrhart is a former English professor who currently writes the Knit & Nibble mystery series for Kensington. Knitmare on Beech Street is the tenth book in the series. A Knit & Nibble novella, Murder Most Irish, will appear in spring 2024 as part of Kensington’s St. Patrick’s Day-themed novella collection, Irish Milkshake Murder, and Knit & Nibble #11, A Dark and Stormy Knit, will appear in fall 2024. Peggy’s amateur sleuth, Pamela Paterson, is the founder of the Knit & Nibble knitting club in charming Arborville NJ, and Peggy herself is a devoted crafter.
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