Whodunnit Dinners Podcast #4 Agatha Christie: Village Gossip, Delicious Death and a Triumph

Hello again and welcome to the blog that serves as a side dish to our WhoDunnit Dinners murder mystery podcast, in which we chew-the-cud over a murder mystery and suggest suitably satiating dishes that might be inspired by the story. 

A Murder Mystery Classic

In episode #4, Helen gave us a rundown of the Agatha Christie post-war detective classic from  1950:  A Murder is Announced Set in the fictional, English village of Chipping Cleghorn, it features her well-known amateur sleuth Miss Marple. It has the fabulously chilling premise of a murder being announced in the classified column of the local newspaper, delivered to everyone in the village on a Friday morning. “A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.” And so it came to pass. Why would a murderer be so audacious and what connects that death with the murders to follow? 

Agatha Christie shows us once again in A Murder is Announced why she’s the best-selling novelist of all time. (As a bit of a tangent, Christie and in fact crime, thriller and detective novels are generally having a bit of a moment, according to this book seller writing on Crime Reads. If you’re curious as to why this might be, take a read of that, then come back later to read on! https://crimereads.com/agatha-christie-will-save-us-all/) 

If you want to hear more about the book, check out the WhoDunnit Dinners podcast episode #4.  If, however, you want to learn more about a dessert fit for the Queen of Murder Mystery herself, hang around here! 

How to Cook up Katie's Triumph

At the end of the previous podcast, Helen set Katie the challenge of coming up with a dish that features a range of ingredients: brandy, pine nuts, dried fruit and black coffee

Ingredients

1 shot of espresso

1 shot of brandy

30 g pine nuts

190g self-raising flour

150g brown sugar

100g unsalted butter

100ml milk

200g mincemeat (British mincemeat ie spiced fruits mix)

2 medium eggs

1tsp mixed spice

Method

1. Line a deep 18cm/7in cake tin with baking paper

2. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and butter and line a deep round18cm/7in cake tin with baking paper.

3. Place the flour, mixed spice, sugar and butter in a bowl with the milk, mincemeat, eggs, espresso shot and brandy shot.

4. Whisk on a low speed for a couple of minutes until thoroughly combined. 

5. Pour or spoon the cake batter into the prepared cake tin.

6. Sprinkle with pine nuts and bake for 50 to 60 minutes until well risen, and a dark golden brown.

7. Alternatively, bake for 50 minutes, remove from the oven and then sprinkle with pine nuts. Return to the oven and cook for a further 5 minutes to brown the nuts.

8. Remove to a wire rack. Leave to cool for about 30 minutes before removing the cake from the tin and removing the baking paper.

If you’ve found this recipe suitably tantalising, take a listen to the full 30 minutes WhoDunnit Dinners podcast and find out more about the story from whence it came.