A few years ago, on a random visit to Liquidation World, I stumbled upon a Murder Mystery box set for a whopping $5. The Big Spender in me couldn’t believe it. Having never been to, or hosted, a murder mystery dinner, yet always wanting to, I couldn’t pass up the amazing $5 opportunity for an incredibly cheesy night of fun presenting itself to me.
The initial excitement faded, however, and the box proceeded to sit on a shelf, collecting dust, for many, many months. In 2009, during my year of most themed parties to date, I began planning for our sweet, chocolate deaths as a Christmas dinner party. Then, plans went bust and the box remained untouched once more. Go figure.
Inspector McClue was obviously saddened by this news, fearing he was destined to forever live alone on a shelf with a number of other untouched, boxed up games. Poor Mr. McClue.
No fear, for after four (I think it was four, anyway) years of sitting on a shelf, McClue would make his first and only appearance, ever! Seriously. Unless I host another Death By Chocolate night, but don’t play myself, there’s no way McClue is ever showing his face around these parts again. It’s over for me. I know who the killer is. The magic is gone.
Anyway.
Since the murder mystery revolved around chocolate, I very obviously focused on chocolate for the desserts portion of our meal. I probably should have incorporated chocolate into every course somehow, but, well, I really rather wanted to avoid literally killing everyone with chocolate consumption.
Thus, I opted for three different chocolate-centric desserts. All delicious. All dairy free. All very nom nom nom.
(Dairy Free) Super Nom Chocolate Cupcakes
adapted from The Foodie and the Family
- 1½ cups of cake & pastry flour
- 3 tbs cocoa powder
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tbs balsamic vinegar
- 5 tbs oil (I’ve always used olive)
- 1 tbs vanilla
- 1 cup water
Preheat oven to 350°F and spray your muffin tin with olive oil / Pam / whatever you’ve got. If you feel so inclined, use liners, but I’ve never been a big liner gal and have survived thus far.
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly.
Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl and stir to combine.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until smooth – don’t beat the batter!
Pour into muffin tin and bake for 18-20 minutes (or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean).
Cool for a few minutes before removing from tin and further cooling on a rack.
Peanut Butter Egg Knock Offs
adapted from The Whimsical Princess
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1½ cups natural peanut butter
- ¼ cup butter or margarine
- 2-3 tbs milk (I’ve used coconut and almond so far)
- chocolate chips & more margarine
Mix together the powdered sugar, peanut butter, and butter/marg. Add the milk one tablespoon at a time until it becomes a nice workable dough. Form the dough into egg shapes, and place in the freezer for about an hour.
Melt down the chocolate in the microwave or in a double boiler. Failing both, use a bowl nestled inside a pot of boiling water. It’s always done me well… except for those times the steam escaped just enough to make contact with my skin in the most irritating way.
I don’t measure this step out and yes, you can be upset with me for it. Simply melt down the chocolate and add margarine until the chocolate acquires a silkier texture.
Dip/roll each egg in/through the melted chocolate and place on waxed paper. I return the eggs to the freezer until set, and then store them there permanently.
Peanut Butter Pretzel Balls
adapted from The Girl Who Ate Everything
- 1 cup natural peanut butter
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- ½ cup finely chopped salted pretzels (approximate)
- milk chocolate chips, melted
Combine peanut butter, powdered sugar, and pretzels in a bowl. Chill in the freezer until firm enough to roll easily.
Roll the peanut butter mixture into balls and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment or wax paper and freeze until very firm, about 30 minutes.
Melt chocolate chips either in the microwave, double boiler, or in the bowl pot hybrid mentioned above. Whatever you’ve got. Whatever’s easiest. Whatever you most feel like doing.
Roll the frozen balls through the melted chocolate. If you’re like me and didn’t follow the recipe properly the first time, the balls won’t be firm enough to properly roll through the melted chocolate. We opted to just drizzle chocolate over them instead and it turned out just fine.
Store the balls in the refrigerator.
Recipe Notes: I have no idea how many pretzels we actually used. We had a small bag on hand that we crushed with a kitchen mallet and added to the peanut butter until the “batter” firmed up.
