Myrtle's Better Than Sex Cake: Cozy Food Cookbook

I love it when my world's of mystery and chocolate cross! Here's a guest post from Nancy Lynn Jarvis. Nancy Lynn Jarvis is the editor of a brand new cookbook called Cozy Food: 128 Cozy Mystery Writers Share Their Favorite Recipes. Cozy Food has 220 recipes from 128 mystery authors. There are Italian, Australian, English, and North American recipes. There are even gluten-free and vegetarian recipes, as well as some pet treats.

Cozy Food has recipes from many Cozy Mystery authors who are found on the Cozy Mystery site. Just to name a few: Ellery Adams, Donna Andrews, Mignon F. Ballard, Juliet Blackwell, Duffy Brown, Mollie Bryan, Shelley Costa, Carola Dunn, Monica Ferris, Sally Goldenbaum, Carolyn Haines, Miranda James, Camille Minichino, Tamar Myers, Nancy J. Parra, Ann Purser, Melissa Bourbon Ramirez, and Elaine Viets. The list is a veritable Who’s Who of Cozy Mystery writing!

Nancy Jarvis:

Janet offered to share a recipe from Cozy Food: 128 Cozy Mystery Writers Share Their Favorite Recipes and asked me, as Editor, to pick one. What a difficult assignment; there are just so many chocolaty choices.

Like all good cookbooks, Cozy Food bulges in the middle with sweets and dessert recipes, many of which contain chocolate as a main ingredient. There are elegant recipes such as “Bribe Your Best Buddy French Chocolate Mousse” and “Dark Chocolate Torte with Grand Marnier.” There’s a whole sub-section of chocolate chip cookies, everyone tasty and original, and another sub-section devoted to brownies and fudge. But the recipe for you today was finally selected because it is easy, delicious, decadent, and breaks one of the quintessential rules of cozy mysteries: that sex takes place “off page.”

Here’s “Myrtle’s Better than Sex Cake” from Beef Stolen-off by Liz Lipperman which appears on page 112 of Cozy Food. 

Myrtle’s Better than Sex Cake 

Ingredients
1 package German chocolate cake mix
3/4 cup hot fudge sauce
3/4 cup caramel sauce
3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
12 ounces extra creamy nondairy whipped topping such as Cool Whip
4 Heath Bars (1.4 ounces each), chopped

Directions
Prepare the cake mix according to package directions and bake in a 13-by-9-by-2 pan 32-37 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool for 20 minutes on rack, then punch 20-25 holes in the top with the handle of a wooden spoon.
Microwave the hot fudge sauce for 20 seconds and then pour it into the holes.
Microwave the caramel sauce and the condensed milk separately and add one at a time just like the hot fudge sauce.
Frost with the whipped topping.
Sprinkle the Heath Bars over the whipped topping.
Refrigerate.

Nancy Lynn Jarvis thinks you should try something new every few years. Writing the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series is her newest adventure and she’s been having so much fun doing it that she’s finally acknowledged she’ll never sell another house. She let her license lapse in May of 2013, after her twenty-fifth anniversary in real estate. After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University, she worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News. A move to Santa Cruz meant a new job as a librarian and later a stint as the business manager for Shakespeare Santa Cruz at UCSC. Her husband Craig is her-go-to guy for everything computer, her initial editor (whether he wants to be or not) and co-editor of Cozy Food, although he doesn’t want credit for it. He’s the one who made the book work so you can easily find whodunit.