Murder, She Baked: A Plum Pudding Mystery

I learned something, plum pudding doesn't usually contain plums!

These "Murder, She Baked" series of movies will never be mistaken for great movies but they are entertaining, partly because they have to be complete by 85 minutes so there isn't any dragging.

Plus Alison Sweeney, who plays baker Hannah Swensen, is very attractive and very personable. As in the others there is a murder mystery to be solved but that never really takes the focus off the real meat of these movies. Whether Hannah will end up with Mike the Cop or with Norman the Dentist.

Her mother and sister are suitably annoying, it helps the story line move forward, they are OK in small doses.

We found a set of two DVDs at our public library that contains five of the "Murder, She Baked" movies. We are watching all of them at home.

We watched this out of desperation during COVID-19 lockdown! What a dreary offering! All the characters were equally annoying in their roles! The actress playing the mother was particularly painful! Inane lines, silly situations, nothing really seemed worth caring about! Very disappointed we gave it our attention.

"Murder, She Baked: A Plum Pudding Mystery" is part of a series of movies starring Allison Sweeney and Cameron Mathison. If you're a soap fan you're very familiar with both of them.

People tend to look down on soap actors. They forget that as actors, they have to be able to cry on cue and express real emotion, memorize as many as 60 pages of dialogue in a day, and one other thing as well -- they have to make their unbelievable story lines believable. And they succeed.

In Eden Lake, Minnesota, it's a week before Christmas, and Hannah Swensen (Sweeney) who owns Hannah's Cookie Jar is very busy indeed filling orders. At this point she has two men after her, Mike (Mathison) a police officer, and Norman, a dentist. Her mother Delores (Barbara Niven) likes Norman. Her sister Andrea (Lisa Durupt) likes Mike.

That's one feature of Hannah's life; the other is that she keeps finding dead bodies. This time it's one of her own customers, Larry Jaeger, who co-owned the Crazy Elf Christmas tree lot with Courtney Miller (Farah Fath, another soap actress), his fiancée.

Mike hates that Hannah becomes involved in these cases; she gets in the way of his own investigation.

The major suspect is a friend of Hannah's mother, Nancy Schmidt (Ona Grauer), better known as "Dr. Love" on the radio. She is still married to Larry, but she hasn't seen him in years, since he stole all her money and disappeared. Larry was collecting money from the Christmas tree store but his fiancé was doing all the work.

It turns out that Larry has a few enemies, so Dr. Love is just one. And Hannah may be in danger as she gets too close to the truth.

I guessed I missed something during this - I mean, how big is this town that Dr. Love never ran into Larry? He's obviously in town because he was killed there.

Plot hole or no plot hole, this episode has a nice atmosphere, and the acting is fine. Kristoffer Tabori does a good job of directing as he keeps the action moving. The romance is nice, too, with Sweeney and Mathison having good chemistry.

As an aside, Cameron Mathison is one of the sweetest people in the world. If you tell him your friend so and so met him in Chicago, he'll say, right - she came with her mother, right? He's amazing that way. It's always nice to see him.

I love the Murder She Baked cosy mystery series on Hallmark. The cast is really tight, the dialogue is smart and funny, and the mysteries are pretty good. Alison Sweeney plays Hannah Swenson...small town baker and part time mystery sleuth. She is the owner of The Cookie Jar, which is providing cookies for the Crazy Elf Tree Lot. In this, the second entry the flames are fanned with her two romantic rivals the handsome and unpredictable detective, Mike and the dependable dentist, Norman. There is some comedy as both men show up at the tree lot buying Hannah a tree. Comedy is had, as one tree is donated to charity and the other the two men attach to Hannah's car. There is some great banter with both mother and sister, as each tries to put their romantic choice forward as the obvious candidate for Hannah. But this is a murder mystery, and post a date with our dentist, Hannah arrives at the tree lot to pick up her check for the cookies. Together Hannah and Norman find the owner's dead body. Mike tries but fails to keep Hannah out of this investigation.

Fun cosy mystery that has a bit of a Christmas theme with cookies and plum pudding. A must watch in the Murder She Baked series.

Alison Sweeney and Cameron Mathison totally no chemistry he steals all the scenes .awful co-host on home and family him and Debbie both camera hogs.too cheesy