Tres Leches Cupcakes (40 page)

“I’ve got half an hour before I get to you, and I don’t want you to get off the phone until I can take you in my arms, so will you tell me about the balloons?”

Warmth enveloped her, and she leaned back against the chair and pushed away every ounce of worry and stress and concern. All she wanted to think about were the balloons. The amazing, beautiful, bright, and cheery balloons. “Well, the first time I saw them . . . ”

Meringue Frosting for Tres Leches Cupcakes

1 cup granulated sugar

½ cup water

2 egg whites

Pinch of salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a small saucepan, mix water and sugar. Heat on medium-high heat until boiling. Cook until soft-ball stage* (about 10 minutes), stirring frequently. Keep syrup on medium-high heat. (Use caution when handling hot syrup; it will burn you if not respected!)

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites about a minute, then add salt. Continue beating until soft peaks form. Add cinnamon and mix only until combined.

While still beating the egg whites, add hot syrup steadily and beat until the mixture reaches the consistency of marshmallow cream.

*To know whether or not you have reached soft-ball stage, drop a small amount of syrup into a bowl of cold water. If it gels together and forms a soft ball, you have reached the correct consistency.

For a filled tres leches cupcake, use an apple corer or small paring knife to remove a “plug” from the center of each cupcake. Add the three milks as directed in the recipe on page 4. Before frosting, fill hole with stabilized whipping cream, then frost cupcakes using a decorator’s bag.

Stabilized Whipping Cream

1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (one packet of Knox is a full tablespoon)

4 teaspoons cold water

1 cup heavy whipping cream

¼ cup powdered sugar

Mix together gelatin and water in a small microwave-safe bowl. Set aside and allow to thicken. In a mixing bowl, whip whipping cream with powdered sugar until slightly thick. Put gelatin mixture in the microwave and cook for 12 seconds. Remove, stir to even out any hot spots in the mixture, then, while mixing the cream on low speed, slowly add gelatin mixture. Once added, beat cream on high speed for about 5 minutes, or until very thick.

Using a decorator’s bag, or zip-top plastic bag with a corner snipped off, fill the holes in the cupcakes. Store any leftovers in refrigerator.

Note: Leftover stabilized whipping cream can be used in place of frosting.

Acknowledgments

I love writing acknowledgments because it gives me the opportunity to marvel at the many blessings I have through the people in my life who help make this work.

My writing group: Nancy Campbell Allen (
Isabelle Webb: The Grecian Princess
, Covenant, 2013), Becki Clayson, Jody Durfee, and Ronda Hinrichsen (
Trapped
, Walnut Springs, 2010). These women are a priceless front line for me, and I so appreciate their patience and continual brainstorming and plot-hole-filling. I could never get these stories to work without their guidance.

Thank you to the beta readers I used this time around: Crystal White, Nancy Allen, Jenny Moore, and Lori Widdison. Without their final polish, my editor would know what an idiot I really am.

I should note here that I used my fictional license to alter some details concerning the Balloon Fiesta to better fit my story. The only balloon company authorized to give rides from Fiesta Park is Rainbow Ryders. If you’ve never attended the Balloon Fiesta, put it on your bucket list. It was an amazing experience, and I owe a big thanks to Jana Erickson for telling me about it—I had no idea.

The title of this book was determined via a recipe contest, and I am so grateful to everyone who took the time to send their fabulous recipes my way. Lois Blackburn was the grand-prize winner—she developed the Tres Leches Cupcake recipe from scratch, and it was absolutely perfect. (She even made a delightful cameo in the story. You can visit Modern Cupcakes by Lois online at ModernCupcakesbyLois.com.) Big thanks to Shadow Mountain for sending complimentary copies of
Banana Split
to everyone who entered a recipe—I did not know at the outset that would be part of the contest but was so grateful for their generosity. And I will never forget the thrill of signing 150 books all at once. I felt like a rock star.

My production team at Shadow Mountain once again did a fabulous job: Jana Erickson, product director; Lisa Mangum (
After Hello
, Shadow Mountain, 2012), editor; Shauna Gibby, designer; Rachael Ward, typographer; and all the other people who bring the bits and pieces of brilliance together to make this happen. I have been so wonderfully supported and encouraged by everyone at Shadow Mountain that I cannot thank them enough for all they have done and continue to do for me.

Once again my test kitchen came to my rescue for this book: Sandra (Meringue frosting, Cinco de Mayo chicken salad), Whit (Dulce de Leche bars and Dulce de Leche frosting), Megan (Tostadas Compuestas, Posole, Green Chile Stew), Danyelle, Annie, Laree, Don, Lisa, and Katie. They are the reason I can be confident of how wonderful these recipes are, and I am so grateful for their priceless contribution to this book.

Someone recently asked me if any of my kids write. They are all very talented at it, but my oldest two have informed me that they
hate
writing. I think seeing my neurosis up close has completely banished the blush from the rose for them. How grateful I am, however, for their love and support of the crazy woman going on and on about the character she can’t rein in and the plot hole that gobbled up every good word she managed to scratch out that morning. How grateful we
all
are for my husband, Lee, and his stable and calm presence. Without my family, there would be no words at all, and I credit them with making this career of mine possible.

How grateful I am for a Father in Heaven who has blessed me so very much, and for the journey I have taken as I’ve written these stories. I thank Him for everything, past, present, and future. It’s been a wonderful ride.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

www.ourbestbites.com/2011/02/chicken-tortilla-soup

Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta

www.balloonfiesta.com

Newspaper article about Indian antiquities

www.deseretnews.com/article/700182124/Warehouse-protects-thousands-and-thousands-of-looted-Indian-antiquities.html

Rainbow Ryders, Inc.

www.rainbowryders.com

Modern Cupcakes by Lois

www.moderncupcakesbylois.com

Baked Alaska

Coming Spring 2013

Enjoy this sneak peek!

Chapter 1

Don’t be a snob, Mom.”

Sadie didn’t look up from the gelatinous bread pudding she was poking with the serving spoon. “Bread pudding should not jiggle. If this is any indication of the food I can expect on this cruise, it’s going to be a very long week.”

“It’s the first buffet,” Breanna said as she spooned some berry cobbler onto her plate. “Don’t judge it so harshly.”

The cobbler looked okay, so Sadie took a small amount of it after Breanna finished, then followed her daughter down the line.

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” Sadie said, narrowing her eyes at what was supposed to be cheesecake but looked like a stiff pudding. She settled for a cherry turnover that looked exactly like the ones she liked to get from Arby’s. “On the cruise I took with Gayle in January, the food was just awful,” Sadie said. The inexpensive, three-day Baja cruise had been a test to see if Sadie could handle the water issues of being in a floating hotel.

She’d always loved cruises, but she’d had some traumatic experiences associated with water that she worried would ruin future vacations. The cruise with Gayle had convinced her she was okay
on
the water, just not
in
it.

Now here she was on another cruise—a longer one—with a different cruise line and the first foray into the menus was less than confidence-inspiring. Good bread pudding was not hard to make. It should be dense, flavorful, and topped with creamy caramel sauce—like her cousin Kara’s recipe Sadie had made for years and years. If they couldn’t do right by bread pudding, what would their beef Wellington be like?

They finished the dessert segment of the buffet and headed for the salad bar—dessert first whenever possible.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, you seem a little uptight,” Breanna said once they finished dishing up and began walking around the dining room in hopes of finding an empty table. “Is everything okay? Have you already found a dead body you’re afraid to tell me about?”

Sadie scowled at her daughter and gave her an exaggerated eye roll. “I’ll have you know I haven’t seen a dead body for eight months, if you don’t count Brother Harper from church, but he was eighty-seven and properly laid out in his coffin when I saw him at the viewing. It was a lovely service.”

“Eight months—that’s got to be some kind of record, right?”

“Oh, stop it,” Sadie said, wishing she had a free hand so she could playfully slap her daughter’s arm. “I think that phase of my life is over.” She scanned table after table filled with people already eating. “Is there not even one empty table in this entire dining room?”

“There’s some back there,” Breanna said, nodding forward. “Just calm down.”

They made their way past their fellow passengers until they finally slid into their seats, officially staking their claim on a table for four that looked out over the Seattle port.

“Seriously, though,” Breanna said once they were seated. “Are you okay?”

Sadie took a breath and decided to spill—it often helped to talk about one’s problems, or so she’d heard. “I’m worried about this trip.”

Breanna unwrapped her silverware from her napkin, placed the cloth in her lap, then raised her brown eyes to meet Sadie’s blue ones. Both of Sadie’s children were adopted, and not for the first time Sadie though that Breanna’s birth mother must have been as beautiful as her daughter.

“
You’re
worried? This whole trip was your idea.”

“I know, but I guess the worry didn’t hit me until I realized Pete and Shawn would be on the transfer bus together. They’ll be on that bus for half an hour, then in line for another hour. What if they decide they hate each other by the time they get here? Then we’re stuck together for seven really lousy days.”

“Shawn and Pete have been together before,” Breanna said. “I’m the one who hardly knows your boyfriend.”

“Oh, don’t call him that,” Sadie said, feeling her cheeks heat up. “It sounds so . . . young.”

Breanna laughed and stabbed a bite of her salad with one hand while tucking her long, straight, brown hair behind her ear with the other. “I’d call him your fiancé, but he hasn’t made it official yet, though I don’t know what he’s waiting for.”

Sadie took a bite of her own salad to stall before she answered. The truth was that she and Pete had talked about marriage often during the last few months as Pete’s retirement grew closer and the threat Sadie had been running from felt more and more distant. But Sadie had always stopped the wedding discussions when they got to the point of timing and specifics.

Breanna had been engaged for more than a year now, and the happy couple had finally set a date for October. Sadie was loath to take any attention away from her daughter’s special celebration of a joined life. Pete understood Sadie’s reason to delay their own vows, but seeing as how they weren’t getting any younger—Sadie was fifty-eight and Pete sixty-one—two and a half years was a really long courtship. This cruise, therefore, had multiple purposes—to celebrate Pete’s retirement from the police department, to allow Sadie’s children to get to know him better, and for Sadie to help with Breanna’s wedding plans. Seeing as how Breanna lived in London and Sadie lived in Colorado, mother and daughter hadn’t had a lot of time to talk things over.

“So?”

Sadie looked up, her fork halfway to her mouth. “What?”

“I asked if Pete was going to make an honest woman of you or not?”

“Breanna Lynn!” Sadie said, lowering her fork as her cheeks heated up again. “Are you implying that my relationship with Pete Cunningham is anything less than respectable?”

Breanna’s grin widened, and she pointed her fork across the table. “Bazinga.”

“Bazinga? What does that mean?”

Breanna laughed again and took another bite.

It must be European humor.

“Seriously, though, this whole cruise is about you making an announcement to Shawn and me, right?”

“No,” Sadie said, shaking her head. Is that what they thought? “It’s a family vacation, and my chance to get caught up on your wedding plans.”

“Oh,” Breanna said with a shrug of one shoulder, showing how unconcerned she was about the information. “Shawn and I both like Pete, so I don’t know why you’re so worried.”