Do you ever have the sense that just as everything is starting to come together, something is about to fall apart?

That’s the feeling I couldn’t shake on a late autumn afternoon in my sweet Shakespearean town of Ashland, Oregon. I should have been blissfully content. Fall had left its indelible mark on our village. The trees were awash with gold, burnt orange, brilliant reds, and deep greens. Our family bakeshop Torte was alive with the aroma of warming spices and fresh baked bread. And the icing on the cake for my favorite season of the year was that we had been hired to cater the biggest event Ashland had ever seen.

SOMA (the art museum at Southern Oregon University) was hosting a gala for the world premier unveiling of Shakespeare’s Lost Pages. The discovery of the Bard’s long, lost manuscript Double Falsehood was perhaps the greatest literary find of our time, and Torte was going to be at the center of it. We had spent weeks pouring over Elizabethan cookbooks and testing old world recipes for frangipane tarts and lardy cakes. In addition to preparing a feast fit for a queen, we had also been tasked with creating magnificent chocolate showpieces, including a replica of the theater in the round.

I hadn’t anticipated that sculpting chocolate was going to be such a challenge. I quickly realized that there was a reason for the culinary term “tempering” chocolate. Chocolate was temperamental to say the very least. Torte’s kitchen looked like a murder scene with chocolate blood splatter and remnants of pieces gone wrong. Fortunately, after too many baking fails to count, we had finally tamed the chocolate beast and managed to construct chocolate art worthy of having a place next to William Shakespeare himself.

That should have brought me relief, but when the day of the gala finally arrived, I was still on edge. Maybe it was my overactive imagination or maybe it was that I kept seeing people sneaking around dark corners of the museum as I set up for the gala. I tried to concentrate on the task at hand. SOMA had been transported back in time. It was like stepping into the pages of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, complete with costumes, fairy lights, and every Shakespearean artifact imaginable.

I pushed my worries aside and plated petit fours, rustic hand pies, and fancy jellies filled with chestnut cream. Our chocolate Elizabethan theater and Shakespeare’s desk with a working drawer containing a piece of hidden parchment sent happy goosebumps up my arms. We had actually done it—we had created edible art.

Only that feeling was short-lived. Before the museum curator had had a chance to unveil the manuscript, it went missing. Those goosebumps turned into shivers that ran down my spine. Not only was the priceless manuscript missing, but rumors were starting to swirl that staff were missing too. That sinking feeling I’d had earlier was about to come true, and if I couldn’t solve this case, my life just might be on the line too.

Bake, Borrow, and Steal, A Bakeshop Mystery #14
Genre: Cozy, Culinary
Release: December 2021
Purchase Link

Ellie Alexander’s Bake, Borrow, and Steal, the most delicious installment yet in the Bakeshop Series set in Ashland, Oregon!

As the autumnal hues of November fall over the Shakespearean hamlet of Ashland, Oregon, Jules and her team at Torte are working on their biggest event ever. They’ve been invited to create chocolate showpieces for the gala opening of a new exhibit, Shakespeare’s Lost Pages at SOMA. The museum, located on the campus of Southern Oregon University, is getting ready to unveil the Bard’s lost manuscript, Double Falsehood, which is being touted as the greatest artistic discovery of modern times. In addition to molding luscious, silky chocolate into magnificent structures, Torte will be serving an authentic Elizabethan feast straight from the pages of a sixteenth century cookbook featuring Lardy cakes, Frangipane tarts, and jellies with chestnut cream.

Jules has underestimated the amount of work required to pull off such a culinary feat. She finds herself in the strange position of feeling frazzled and stressed as the day of the gala approaches. However, her team rallies around her and once the massive works of chocolate art are safely installed at the museum, she can finally let out a sigh of relief and revel in the excitement of the grand celebration. But her relief is short-lived. Right before the unveiling, news quickly begins to spread that Shakespeare’s lost manuscript is missing. Not only that, but the security guard tasked with keeping the priceless artifact safe has been killed. Is this a case of a heist gone terribly wrong? Or could it be that a killer is lurking in the museum archives?

About the author
Ellie Alexander is a Pacific Northwest native who spends ample time testing pastry recipes in her home kitchen or at one of the many famed coffeehouses nearby. When she’s not coated in flour, you’ll find her outside exploring hiking trails and trying to burn off calories consumed in the name of research.

Ellie also loves hearing from her readers and interacting with them on social media. You can find her at elliealexander.co.

All comments are welcomed.