Recipe Weekend-How DO You Get Monkey Poop Cupcakes from The Biscuit Witch?

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from NetGalley, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it


the biscuit with cover

Synopsis:   This time, the MacBrides are home to stay.

Dear Dr. Firth:I know you are in your cups at this time, drinking, taking pills, and sleeping under trees, but I have some experience rehabilitating lost souls in that regard, and so I am enclosing a box of my biscuits and a cold-wrapped container of cream gravy for dessert. Please eat and write back. We need a veterinarian of your gumption here in the Crossroads Cove of Jefferson County. --
                      Delta Whittlespoon, proprietress of The Crossroads Café

Biscuit witches, Mama called them. She’d heard the term as a girl. She’d inherited that talent. My mother could cast spells on total strangers simply by setting a plate of her biscuits in front of them.  –Tal MacBride


Welcome back to the Crossroads Cove where new loves, old feuds, and poignant mysteries will challenge siblings Tal, Gabby, and Gus MacBride to fight for the home they lost and to discover just how important their family once was, and still is, to the proud people of the Appalachian highlands.  Tallulah MacBride hasn’t been back to North Carolina since their parents’ tragic deaths, twenty years ago. But now, Tal heads to cousin Delta Whittlespoon’s famous Crossroads Café in the mountains above Asheville, hoping to find a safe hiding place for her young daughter, Eve. What she finds is Cousin Delta gone, the café in a biscuit crisis, and a Scotsman, who refuses to believe she’s passing through instead of “running from.” He believes she needs a knight in shining flannel.When a pair of sinister private eyes show up, Tal’s troubles are just beginning.  For Tal’s brother and sister—Gabby, the Pickle Queen, and Gus, the Kitchen Charmer—the next part of the journey will lead down forgotten roads and into beautiful but haunted legacies.


Review: Ever read a book where you feel like you just fell down a rabbit hole into the book, and you never ever want to leave it? Yup- this is ONE of those books! Literally from page 2, I was hooked! Call t fluff, call it Chick Lit, but call me a devoted fan who is screaming for MORE MORE MORE- it was so refreshing to see main characters who are NOT Barbie perfect, accept themselves for WHO they are and ENJOY each other as they are! I never wanted the book to end (which is a good thing there are more books coming, This novella, A Crossroads Café Novella, is Book One of The MacBrides series, that will later be put into one book). whew so glad to hear that!). 

The book is funny, wry, smart and familiar to any Southern woman! If you are a mom, you will find yourself smiling a WHOLE lot during the book, and laughing out loud more than once (and purple sprinkles will take on a WHOLE new meaning for you- you have to read the book to get that aside!).

You may see the end coming, but you just want to sit back and enjoy the ride, along with the characters, hoping that the author is keeping the story where YOU want it! You may also find yourself bookmarking a lot of pages (that seems to be a theme this week, doesn't it? Weird- Karma baby!). My ONLY complaint was there was not one recipe included! Yes, I should warn you- do NOT read this book on an empty stomach! The food descriptions will have your stomach growling if you do! That in fact was my only complaint- NO recipes! BAWWW... Hence I had to find a 'Monkey Poop Cupcake' recipe that sounded close enough in the one in the book for you all to try today (thanks to Taste of Home Magazine, I think I did!)!

Monkey Poop (aka Banana) Cupcakes

Ingredients: 
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1-1/2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 medium)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  •  Banana Frosting Ingredients
  • 2 cups confectioners' sugar
  • 1/3 cup butter, softened
  • 3 tablespoons mashed ripe banana
  • 1 tablespoon Nielssen Massey Bourbon Vanilla

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. 

2. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. 

3. Beat in bananas and vanilla.

4.  Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt

5. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture, alternately with buttermilk, beating well after each addition.

6. Fill paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full.

7.  Bake at 375° for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. 

8. meanwhile make frosting:  combine the frosting ingredients; beat until light and fluffy. 

9. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

10. Frost cupcakes.  Yield1-1/2 dozen. Watch the kid's faces when you holler " Who wants a Monkey Poop Cupcakes ?!"

You HAVE to read this series! It describes Southern women, how our culture revolves around food, and each other,  in ways that no author has come close to!

The Pickle Queen, Book 2 of the MacBrides is available already, and The Kitchen Charmer,, Book 3 of the MacBrides, will be soon, and the combined book in 2014!


About the AuthorDeborah Smith is the NYT and WSJ bestselling author of A PLACE TO CALL HOME, THE CROSSROADS CAFE, and many other novels. With more than 35 romance, women's fiction and fantasy novels to her credit, Deborah's books have sold over 3 million copies worldwide.She's also a founding partner and VP of BelleBooks and its main division, Bell Bridge Books. She also writes under the pen name of  Leigh Bridger (for her edgy urban fantasy novels). 

Deb writes almost exclusively about romance, family drama and "other," and many of her settings are the Appalachian mountain communities of Georgia and North Carolina. Her family heritage is based in those areas and, like many legacies of Appalachian kinfolk, is a mixture of Scots-Irish, Scots, Irish, English, Welsh and Native American, primarily Cherokee and Creek Indian.

She lives on a secluded dirt road high in the mountains of north Georgia with Hank, her husband of many years, plus a herd of deer, a flock of turkeys, numerous well-fed raccoons, possums and the occasional bear, also eight cats, a dog and more than one-hundred pond-raised goldfish.
Check out her website for more! 


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