Caught Bread Handed (31 page)

Bacon-Wrapped Dates

Ingredients:

25–30 pitted dates

1 ½ pounds of bacon—sliced thin

25–30 toothpicks

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wrap each date with a slice of bacon and secure with a toothpick. Place on a cookie sheet. Bake dates for 20 minutes. Turn halfway through so that the bacon is cooked on both sides. Serve warm.

Lemon Olive Oil Cake

Ingredients:

1 large lemon (juice and zest)

1 cup sugar

4 eggs

½ cup olive oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup flour

Powdered sugar to dust the top of the cake

Directions:

Zest lemon and then squeeze juice. Beat sugar and eggs on high for 5 to 10 minutes until they become fluffy and pale. Add in lemon juice, zest, olive oil, and vanilla and mix on low. Sift dry ingredients together and fold into the mixture by hand. Pour into a greased springform pan and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Allow cake to cool for 30 minutes, then remove from springform pan and dust with powdered sugar.

Chunky Monkey

Andy's latest funky coffee creation. It's like dessert in a cup.

Ingredients:

Good quality espresso (Jules and Mom serve Stumptown at Torte, but are always open to trying new blends.)

2% milk

2 tablespoons dark chocolate sauce

1 teaspoon banana extract

Whipping cream

Macadamia nut shavings

Directions:

Prepare espresso and steam milk. Mix chocolate sauce and banana extract in the bottom of your favorite coffee mug. Add steamed milk and stir. Pour over espresso. Top with whipping cream and macadamia nut shavings.

 

Acknowledgments

At Torte everyone is family, and bringing Torte to life takes an entire family. Not just my family but friends, neighbors, readers, bookstore owners, librarians, bakers, my publicity team, editors, business owners, and even my friendly mail carrier.

Thank you for sharing recipes, taste testing, editing, reading early drafts, inspiring me in the kitchen, inviting me into your homes, book clubs, and bookstores, and making Torte come to life.

You are all a part of these pages.

And, I have to send a special shout out to Ellen for coming up with the title
Caught Bread Handed
. No title gets more laughs when I'm giving book talks, and that is the way it should be. I hope that along with the title this book brings you a moment of laughter and joy and sends you scurrying to your nearest Torte for a scrumptious pastry.

 

Read on for an excerpt of the next installment in the Bakeshop Mystery Series

Fudge and Jury

Available January 2017 from St. Martin's Paperbacks!

 

They say that chocolate makes everything better. I agree. Torte, our family bakeshop, looked as if it had been dipped in chocolate. Every square inch of counter space was filled with chocolate tarts, chocolate eclairs, chocolate cakes, chocolate cookies and chocolate truffles. Chocolate posters were plastered on the bakeshop's front windows and the scent of chocolate simmering on the stove permeated the cozy kitchen.

Every March, Ashland, Oregon, my hometown, hosts an annual Chocolate Festival. This year Torte had been chosen as one of the showcase vendors. That meant we would have a prominent booth in the center of all the delicious action and have an opportunity to showcase our chocolate artistry. Being recognized as a showcase vendor was a huge accolade, but also meant that we had to prepare double—if not triple—the amount of chocolate samples. Our staff had been working around the clock.

Torte looked like a scene from
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
. Chocolate bubbled on the stove and cooled in long thin sheets on the butcher block island. We drizzled white, dark, and milk chocolate over marzipan, dipped shortbread cookies in vats of it, and baked with industrial-sized containers of cocoa powder.

In addition to the bakeshop being taken over by chocolate, we were in the middle of a remodel. After months of skimping and saving, Mom and I had finally managed to amass enough cash to purchase new ovens we desperately needed. Since the Chocolate Festival would take place over a four-day weekend, we decided to close Torte for the duration of the Fest. Andy, Stephanie, and Sterling, our small but mighty staff, would focus on the kitchen upgrade while Mom and I dazzled guests with our chocolate confections at the Fest.

I had worked out a schedule that would allow enough time to clean and prep the kitchen, paint, reorganize and inventory our stock, and (fingers crossed if everything went as planned) to install the new ovens just in time to reopen for business on Monday. The Chocolate Fest kicked off on Thursday afternoon, which meant that the team had two and half days to complete all the prep work before the installers arrived with our ovens on Sunday morning. It was going to be tight, but I was confident we could pull it off. No one at Torte was afraid of hard work or a little elbow grease. I had a feeling that was due to Mom's incredible work ethic. She set an example for our young staff. Despite the fact that she was in her mid-fifties she was still one of the first people to arrive and last to leave.

That was one of the many things that she and I needed to talk about. I knew that part of her wanted to scale back, and I also knew it was time. She had been at Torte's helm since my dad died and thanks to her tireless effort, kind listening ear, and delicious bread and pastries, Torte was thriving. I wanted her to be able to thrive too. She and the Professor, Ashland's resident detective and Shakespeare buff, had been getting serious. The Professor wanted to travel. Mom had been reluctant to commit, and I had a sneaking suspicion I knew why: me.

When I returned to Ashland last summer my heart was broken. I'd left everything I knew, including my husband, at sea. Being back in Ashland surrounded by warm and welcoming familiar faces and Torte's bright and cherry red and teal walls was exactly what the doctor ordered. My heart had finally started to mend. It helped that Carlos, my estranged husband, had made a surprise visit to Southern Oregon last month. Seeing his sultry Spanish skin and romantic dark eyes had been unsettling, to say the very least. When we parted ways we agreed that we would take a hiatus. He was the last person I expected to show up in Ashland.

At first the distraction of having him underfoot was too much, but after a few days we fell into our old rhythm. I guess in some ways it was inevitable. Food was our love language. We didn't even need to speak when we were in the kitchen together. We had worked together for years on the cruise ship and it was if our bodies remembered. We moved in a comfortable easy cadence just like we had on the ship. But things we different now. Carlos had lied to me. He had hidden the fact that he had a son for the duration of our marriage. I hadn't been sure that I could forgive him for that. Maybe it was the time we had spent apart, or maybe it was because I had carved out a new life for myself in Ashland, but either way I had found a way to forgive him.

When he first arrived I was angry, but that had begun to dissipate. Of course I was sad and disappointed that he had kept something so important from me, but I had also begun to understand why. He was trying to protect his son, Ramiro. I couldn't blame him for that. I felt fiercely protective of Mom, and came to realize that was how Carlos felt about Ramiro.

It would have been so much easier if I could have stayed angry with him. When Carlos was oceans away I had concentrated my time and energy on Torte and let thoughts of our time together slip into the recesses of my brain. He became more like a fuzzy dream until he showed up in real life and flipped everything upside down again.

Even though things were healing between us and even though I knew that Carlos loved me and would do anything for me, I didn't want to leave Ashland. My life on the ship was a distant memory. My future was at Torte, and only time would tell if Carlos was part of that future. For the moment he was back on the ship and sailing under sunny Caribbean skies, and I was late for a date with chocolate.

I shook myself free from my thoughts and concentrated on my immediate surroundings. Mom and Dad used to tease me about living in my head too much when I was growing up. I blame them; after all, they named me Juliet Montague Capshaw. A name like Juliet requires time spent in your head.

The clock on the far wall signaled that it was a few minutes before noon. I needed to get moving. Brushing cocoa powder from my hands, I untied my apron and folded it on the island. “Back in a few,” I called to Stephanie and Mom and headed for the front door.

The sky dripped like a leaky faucet as I stepped onto Main Street. Many tourists are surprised to learn that Ashland gets very little rain. People tend to think that Oregon is one giant mud puddle in the winter months. There's some truth to that. Portland and the surrounding valley west of the Cascade Mountains tend to get waterlogged, but Ashland is much more Mediterranean. It's one of the sunniest cities in the Pacific Northwest with a relatively mild climate.

I pulled my rain jacket over my head and ducked under the red-and-white striped awning at Pucks' Pub. In addition to boasting a serene climate, Ashland is also known around the world as being home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Our quaint downtown plaza could be mistaken for an old English village. Most of the buildings are themed after Shakespeare with ornate façades and gables, and witty Bard-inspired names. In fact I was on my way to meet with Rosalind Gates, the president of the downtown business association. Rosalind had been working with the city to preserve Ashland's old world charm. The city (thanks to Rosalind's persistence) had recently passed new design ordinances in order to ensure that businesses in the busy plaza adhered to the historical esthetic.

Rosalind had even found grant money to help small businesses, like Torte, expand. That's why I was meeting with her today. I tucked a white paper bag with our Torte logo stamped on the front into the inside pocket of my jacket and hurried along the wet sidewalk.

Hearth and Home, the brokerage firm where I was meeting Rosalind, was located just outside the plaza. I headed toward Lithia Park and took a right at the end of Main Street. Rain splattered on my jeans and soaked through my tennis shoes.

I pushed open the glass door and stepped inside. Rosalind was waiting for me near the reception desk. Her silver hair was tucked behind her ears revealing plastic earrings in the silhouette of Shakespeare's bust. She wore a purple t-shirt that read, “Ashland: Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On.” The last time I'd seen Rosalind she had been sporting a “Save our Shakespeare” shirt when a chain restaurant threatened to move into the plaza.

“New shirt?” I asked, taking off my rain coat and hanging it on a rack by the door.

She glanced at her chest. “Do you like it? I'm testing out a new tagline for the plaza. I'm not sure if this one is going to stick.”

“But you made a shirt.”

“My son bought me a screen press for Christmas and I figured I'd give it a whirl.”

“That's great.” I walked toward her and handed her the bag. “Sorry if I'm a couple minutes late, but I come bearing chocolate.”

“Lateness is completely excusable if it involves chocolate.” She removed a dark chocolate-covered cherry from the bag. Her eyes sparkled. When she smiled the deep crevasses formed on her cheeks. “Come on back. I have the paperwork for you to look over.”

She led me to an empty office. Blueprints and maps were tacked to the walls. I noticed one that outlined plans for a railroad terminal and station. “Is this for a railroad?” I pointed to the far wall.

Rosalind's smile broadened. “Yes. It's not public knowledge yet, so let's keep that between us.”

I studied the sketch. “But the railroad tracks have been abandoned for years.”

“Exactly.” Rosalind walked behind the oak desk and took a seat. She motioned for me to sit too. “Do you remember the sound of the train whistle when you were a girl?”

I nodded.

“We've been cut off from the rail line for too long. I intend to change that. Not only will freight deliveries return with my plan but we're also negotiating with Amtrak to bring passenger trains to Ashland again.” She nodded to the wall. “The Siskiyou Summit Railroad Revitalization Project is set to resume train traffic early next year. I can't wait to hear those lovely whistles again.”

Rosalind explained that the railroad had abandoned service to Ashland in 2008. Since then freight had to be hauled by big-rig trucks. In the winter when the mountain passes were snowed in that meant that goods and supplies couldn't be delivered until the roads were cleared.

“I didn't know there were any plans to reopen the rail lines,” I said to Rosalind.

She nodded. “It's been a long time coming, and a vital step for our local economy. Per-mile costs are much less by rail. That's a good thing for you as a business owner.”

“Right,” I agreed.

Pushing a stack of blueprints rolled up with rubber bands to the side of the desk, Rosalind picked up a file folder and handed it to me. Her hands trembled. “Here are the loan papers. You'll need to fill them out and return them to me no later than tomorrow at noon. That deadline is firm. The city council will be making all of their decisions on granting funding. I've already submitted your preliminary application. This is the final paperwork, and Juliet, as we discussed, I think you're a sure thing. Would you and your mother like to do a walk-through this afternoon?”

“I think that's probably a good idea.” I could hear the hesitation in my voice. Everything was moving so fast. It had only been a couple of weeks since Rosalind approached me about the city's grant program. The space below Torte had come available for lease, and we were seriously considering an expansion. It was rare for property on the plaza to open up and when it did there were usually multiple offers from businesses vying for a spot in Ashland's prime retail market.