Snuffed Out - Tim Myers [70]
Another fun thing to do with freshly-dipped candles is to braid them, just like Harrison and Mrs. Jorgenson do in the book. Take two or three freshly-dipped candles and put them on a flat surface. Then, starting from the bottom, plait them into a braid as you go. It’s as easy as that. Squeeze the candles together gently before they cool, then check the bottom to make sure it fits into a candleholder.
These candles are beautiful to burn, if you can bring yourself to do it! Don’t worry, though; the great thing about candlemaking is that you can always make more. Have fun, and don’t be afraid to experiment. Happy candlemaking!
Cranberry Muffins
I’m a big fan of muffins like Millie makes, especially cranberry ones around the holidays. The recipe is simple to use and fills your kitchen with a wonderful aroma as well as yielding baked treats that taste great.
Ingredients
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I like to use canola)
3/4 cup cranberries, halved
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
This recipe makes about a dozen muffins. I like to use cupcake sleeves in my muffin pan to make cleaning up easier. Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Beat the egg, then stir in the milk and the oil. After that, add the cranberry halves to the liquid. Mix the dry ingredients together, then add them to the liquid, using a sifter. Stir just enough to moisten the flour, and don’t worry if the batter is a little lumpy. Fill the cups about halfway to three quarters full. You can sprinkle the tops with sugar before you put them in the oven if you like them a little sweeter. Bake until the muffins are golden brown—about 20 minutes should do it—then enjoy.
And now, a peek at DEATH WAXED OVER, book 3 in the Candlemaking mysteries.
DEATH WAXED OVER
By Tim Myers
Chapter 1
I didn’t hear the shot that killed Gretel Barnett, even though her life was extinguished just fifteen feet from where I stood. There were too many other explosions filling the air, happy merriments celebrating New Conover Founder’s Day. It would have been tragic enough if she’d been a random face in the crowd, but there was something that made it infinitely worse. Gretel was my chief competitor, selling candles and supplies two miles from my own candleshop in Micah’s Ridge, North Carolina. From the way things appeared, I was going to be running short of wick myself if I didn’t come up with who had snuffed out her flame.
Two weeks earlier, I’d finally worked up the nerve to tell my lone employee, Eve Pleasants, that At Wick’s End was going to have a vendor’s table at the New Conover celebration. I delayed sharing the news as long as I could, knowing that she would most likely take it with less than gracious acceptance. I owned the candleshop, along with the rest of River’s Edge—a former warehouse and factory now converted into a complex of shops, offices and my apartment—perched on the edge of the Gunpowder River. But I was less than the master of my own domain, though I cherished At Wick’s End, with its aisles full of waxes, wicks and molds; racks of tools and pots; shelves of powders; tubs of gel and sheets of honeycombed wax. Most of all, I loved the candles. Whether squatty and fat or long and tapered, shaped like stars or bowls, poured into teapots or watering cans, I found beauty in them all. My Great-Aunt Belle had left me the property, along with a hefty mortgage and the legal stipulation that I couldn’t sell the complex until I’d run the candleshop for five years. I never could have imagined that I’d so quickly grow to love the place.
My Great-Aunt had also left me Eve, an older, dour, heavyset woman with a knack for candlemaking and a disposition that forced me to tiptoe around my own business most of the time. She was my erstwhile assistant and would-be candlemaking