This post was inspired by The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood.
On the Page
We meet Judith Potts, an almost-octogenarian, who keeps busy by writing crossword puzzles for the local newspaper. She lives alone, skinny-dips in the river behind her mansion, and loves that she doesn't have a man in her life to tell her how much whisky to drink. While swimming in the Thames, she witnesses the brutal murder of her neighbor, but the police don't believe her and she must band together with Suzie, a dog walker, and Beks, the wife of the local Vicar. Together, they form the Marlow Murder Club...and solve the mystery!
On the Plate
There is plenty of food on the pages as the women track down who murdered Judith's neighbor.
"Judith rooted in her bag again and pulled out an old-fashioned tin of travel sweets. 'Would you like a sweet?' Antonia didn’t quite know what to say to the question. 'No?' Judith asked. 'Then do you mind if I have one?' Judith popped the lid of the tin, plucked a boiled sweet from within the icing sugar, put it in her mouth, and sucked on it for a few seconds. 'Lime,' she pronounced with satisfaction. 'My favorite.'" I still need to look up what a travel sweet is! But Judith carries them around in her purse and eats them frequently.
"Judith made herself a thermos of strong tea and some beetroot sandwiches." I don't think I have ever had a beetroot sandwich. I love beets, but I just can't picture what this would be.
Becks definitely cooks the way that I do. "When Becks’s phone rang, she was in the process of making mayonnaise with a hand whisk. She had a perfectly good food mixer that could have done the job in seconds. In fact, she lived next to any number of shops that would have sold her organic artisanal mayonnaise over the counter. But in the absence of knowing quite what she was doing with her life, Becks clung to the only truth she knew: she was a housewife, and as such, her only sanity was to be the best housewife there’d ever been. Ergo, the hand whisk."
But what sent me into the kitchen was this...
Becks had taken the call in her kitchen, and she looked at the porcelain platters of finger sandwiches, smoked salmon blinis, freshly peeled quails’ eggs, and homemade mini choux pastry eclairs, each plate entombed in layers of cling film
Okay, I don't use cling wrap, but her platters sound delicious. I ended up making mini choux pastry éclairs. I never need much of an excuse to make éclairs. I filled these with a vanilla pastry cream. Because I got the vanilla cream recipe from a friend in Denmark, her measurements are weight, not volume, and in milliliters and grams instead of cups and ounces.
Ingredients
makes two dozen
Pâte à Choux
12 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1-1/2 cups water
2 cups flour
9 eggs
Vanilla Cream
500 ml whole milk
1 vanilla pod, sliced lengthwise with seeds scraped
3 eggs
100 grams organic granulated sugar
30 grams corn starch
25 grams butter
Finishing
semisweet chocolate, tempered for dipping
Also needed: pastry bag (optional)
Procedure
Vanilla Cream
Place the milk and the vanilla bean and scraped seeds in a medium sauce pan and let stand for 20 minutes. Then scald the milk and let the vanilla steep in the milk for 10 minutes. In the meantime, in mixing bowl, blend the sugar and eggs until the mixture becomes fluffy and pale. Add the corn starch and whisk to combine.
Slowly pour the warmed milk into the egg mixture, whisking as you pour. Place the saucepan back on the stove and bring to a boil. Whisking vigorously the whole time. Once the mixture has thickened and just started to boil, remove from the heat. Keep whisking to keep it smooth. Spread the pastry cream into a dish and cover with plastic wrap, touching the top to keep the cream from developing a film. Refrigerate until cool. Place cooled filling into a pastry bag or other decorating tool
Pâte à Choux
Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Bring butter and water to a boil in a large saucepan. Remove pan from heat and add flour all at once. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until mixture forms a thick dough and pulls away from sides of pan, approximately 3 minutes. Return pan to heat and cook, stirring constantly, until dough is lightly dried, about 2 minutes more.
Transfer dough to a bowl, and let cool for 5 minutes; using a wooden spoon, beat in 9 eggs, one at a time, making sure each egg is completely incorporated before adding the next. Dough will come together and be thick, shiny, and smooth.
Place the dough in a piping bag with a side, circular tip. On a parchment-lined baking sheet, setting pieces 1 inch apart, pipe out cylinders approximately 2 inches long.
Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit until puffed and light brown, approximately 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit , and continue to bake until well browned, approximately 15 minutes. Let cool.
Place the pastry on a wire rack and pierce the top with a sharp knife to let out the steam.
Finishing
Pipe the buttercream into the hole that that you pierced to let out the steam, making sure that you don't have too much coming out of the pastry. If you have excess filling, gently wipe the pastry as clean as you can.
Dip the pastries in the tempered chocolate, covering up the filling hole. Let chocolate set before serving.
I am adding this to the February 2025 #FoodieReads Link-Up.
Gorgeous pastries Cam.