The Art of Baking a Cozy Mystery
When I was on the hunt for a cozy mystery series that hadn’t been done before—this was in 2009—I tried on every idea that came my way. My life was a dressing room littered with discarded inspirations that were too small, too big, too plain, too gawdy, well, you get the idea—nothing fit just right.
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And then, three things happened. My library co-worker was getting married, so we spent a shift picking out flavors for her wedding cupcake tower, my son’s godmother messaged me that Sprinkles had opened up down the street from my house and they sold shots of frosting, and my agent at the time tweeted that she always checked out the local cupcake bakery when she traveled.
All of a sudden, I knew I had found what I was looking for. Cupcakes and death! What’s not to love?
The research was a true hardship, as you can imagine. Cupcake bakeries were everywhere, much like weed dispensaries are now, and I ate my bodyweight in buttercream and all flavors of cake. It took me a week to tour several bakeries and craft my proposal for a cozy mystery set against the backdrop of a cupcake bakery. An offer for publication was made within days and I gleefully accepted.
Why did this idea work? What was it about cupcakes and murder that appealed? Let’s start with the hook. Cupcakes were immensely popular (still are), which made the publisher eager to follow that trend as no one else was writing a cupcake-based series at the time. My idea was the same as many other foodie mysteries set in their own particular culinary worlds but it was also different because…cupcakes! I decided to name the bakery Fairy Tale Cupcakes, giving it a sense of lighthearted whimsy to offset the looming darkness of the impending crimes.
A cupcake bakery offers readers several things. It’s a sensory loaded environment in that you have the yummy aroma, the pretty eye-catching decorations of the different cupcakes, and the delicious flavors. It also creates a unique setting where the baker and the employees have to be in place every day to create the food for the customers who visit their bakery. The bakers naturally become the amateur sleuths and in this series I chose to make the three primary characters childhood friends who own a business together to lean into the trope of found family but also to raise the stakes on the success of the bakery. No one wants to go bankrupt with their besties. These elements ground the story when the unthinkable happens, which is of course murder.
Cozies are known for their gentle take on crime. The grisly bits are left off the page and the sleuths’ task is to puzzle out the murder, solving the mystery using their smarts and, if it’s an ensemble task, team work. This works well when the world is a cupcake bakery because the recipe is a little bit of cupcake, a splash of murder, and a pinch of red herrings. And because having a diverse bunch of cupcake bakers become investigators is inherently absurd, it invites all sorts of slapstick shenanigans and comedic capers, filling the story with some laughs as well as craftily placed clues, inviting readers to join the fun.
The main protagonist, Melanie Cooper, is also the chief baker. When I started writing the mysteries, I knew I wanted a single point of view so that the reader would always be right there with Mel, baking cupcakes or tracking down suspects. Her knowledge and passion for baking inform her character but also her journey to opening her bakery with her two best friends make it easy for the reader to rally around Mel and the cupcake crew. It’s hard not to like a character who wants to eat a cupcake or two every time the going gets rough.
Check out Jenn McKinlay’s Fondant Fumble here:
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Because Mel is the chief baking officer, it allows the story to flow from her kitchen to a stake out or a high-speed chase or whatever and back. This helps the story build and release tension as the mystery is unraveled and prevents the narrative from getting bogged down in too much detail about either cupcakes or murder.
For example, a typical chapter would include a brief description about how to roll out a fondant and then it’s off to track down a clue or interview a suspect in the murder investigation. Also, having Mel’s uncle as a homicide detective on the local police force gives her access to the police world and grounds the story with legit investigative procedures.
You would think that mysteries involving cupcakes could get overbaked—see what I did there?—meaning how many times can a baker solve a murder mystery and how different can each mystery really be? Well, the one thing that makes this particular series not only popular with cozy readers but also a joy to write, is that each character in the series has their own unique and distinctive arc.
Beyond the three main characters, their families, friends, acquaintances, and fellow business owners also contribute to each story, creating a cast that readers know better with each addition to the series. There have been break-ups, make-ups, weddings, and babies born, and there is still so much for each of these characters to experience and the readers along with them.
Now that I’ve written the 16th mystery in the Cupcake Bakery mysteries, I can honestly say I never expected the series to run this long but the most valuable thing I’ve learned while writing these mysteries is that the only limit to a series is the author’s imagination. In other words, go for it!
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