The Facts:
Title: Witches and Wedding Cakes
Series: A Magical Bakery Mystery
Author: Bailey Cates
Publisher: Berkley
Format: Paperback, 320 pages
Published: July 28, 2020
Read an excerpt: here
Buy It: Amazon Barnes Target Walmart
In Witches and Wedding Cake, the 9th Magical Bakery Mystery, Katie Lightfoot and Declan McCarthy are getting ready to tie the knot in a few days. The wedding preparations actually began in the 8th book, but they come to fruition in this one. Declan’s mother and two sisters are in town, which complicates things a bit because his older sister, Eliza, is very by-the-book when it comes to wedding traditions, and Katie is more of a free spirit who is willing to think outside the box. Then Declan’s younger sister finds her ex-husband dead in a seedy motel room, and that complicates things a LOT.
This is the second fictional wedding I’ve planned. I spent a lot of time figuring out just how Katie would want things to go. She and Declan just spent a lot of money renovating her carriage house so it will be big enough for two people to comfortably live together, so they need to keep wedding expenses down. She wants the ladies of the spellbook club to make up her wedding party, despite Eliza’s horror that one of them is in her eighties, one is pregnant, and none are brides “maids,” if you know what I mean.
Then there’s the cake. As a baker, and a kitchen witch, Katie wants her wedding cake to be absolutely perfect. But what flavor? She just can’t decide. Now, about a year ago I was at a wedding where each of the three tiers of the cake was a different flavor. I loved the idea, and so did Katie, but she still couldn’t decide on only three flavors. Then her mother suggested the genius solution: a cupcake wedding cake with as many different kinds of cupcakes as Katie might want.
She ended up with seven.
An excerpt from the book:
Lemon whipped cream nestled on top of carrot cake, each topped with tiny piped carrots. The frosting on the German chocolate version was topped with thick coconut shavings. Strawberry boasted pink frosting and candied hearts that looked like stained glass. The devil’s food was chocolate all the way, and more chocolate ganache dripped from the lemon-soaked orange sponge. Caramel buttercream whirled up from the bourbon pecan cupcakes, and the banana and pineapple hummingbird cupcakes were slathered with cream cheese frosting and wheels of dried pineapple.
“Do you think we have enough?” Lucy asked in an amused tone.
I gave her a look. “No need to be sarcastic. I want there to be plenty for the guests.”
“There will be plenty—for the whole neighborhood,” Iris quipped. “Maybe the whole town.”
“Hush,” I said.
I cannot tell you how much fun it was to research cupcake wedding cakes and select the flavors I thought Katie would like. One of the recipes at the end of the book is for the classic Southern hummingbird cupcakes. The other recipe is for peanut butter bacon cookies. Mmm.
Bailey Cates believes magic is all around us if we only look. The next Magical Bakery Mystery, Spirits and Sourdough, is in the works. For more information about Bailey and her books, check out www.baileycates.com .