(no subject)

[hathycol]

So, nothing happened last night. This is spectacularly unsuprising. Derya had the idea that it might have been something I wanted to watch on TV, and radiotimes.com came up with The Falling Man on channel 4. I watched about fifteen minutes of it and was about to leave when Simon phoned me. I actually do find that sort of thing distressing to watch and I could feel my hormones threatening to overwhelm me.

Anyway. I then watched an episode of Father Ted I've never seen before. And that was love, and made me happy, and then I watched The Perverts Guide To Cinema with Katie. We both spoke of our distress at the lack of gratuitous nudity. I mean, really.

Anyway. Today, I have nothing to do, and it is blessed. I woke up at 12.15pm, and I plan on going to leisurely vote, see spockette who is donning a snadwich board (!) and then possibly buying some ingredients to make chocolate brownies. They seem to be intensely complicated to make, but I'm going to try my best and basically Not Fuck Up. I have no idea where to find non-sweetened chocolate - I think it's an American thing - so if anyone can Brit-translate for me, that would be fab.

Today would be better if I could stop sneezing. *sniffles* This will not make work fun or indeed particularly health and safety conscious. Oh well. If someone lives somewhere awkward, I will breathe on their meal. I'M NICE LIKE THAT. The long periods of mind-numbing boredom also mean that I can take my reading for tutorials and do it there. May as well combine two evils and all that.

So! It's going to be a good couple of weeks ahead of me. I have looked through my schedule and carefully deleted everything that I can (this includes a few lectures - huzzah!) so that I have the next week as free as possible so that I don't spend hours abandoning Simon to the dubious mercy of my housemates. Does mean that I'll have to spend my Saturday cleaning, as my room is a hovel and the state of the kitchen may result in his death, as he doesn't have the same immunity we've all developed. Busy, busy. Eehee two days.

~Hathy_Col~

Comments

[emmysuze.livejournal.com]

I would say it means buy dark chocolate instead of milk, or buy unsweetened cocoa power if it's supposed to be in that form. Dark chocolate is better for cooking with you see :)

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Dark chocolate - will remember this!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

chocolate brownies:
are quite simple.
Basically, you melt chocolate, add sugar if necessary, then let it cool (so the eggs don't cook-- basically if you can stick your finger in to taste it, it's cool enough) add eggs, then add flour, and voila!

My mom's recipe:
Sorry, I don't know metric conversions. Google would convert it for you.

Butter and flour 9x13" pan. (I sometimes halve the recipe and use just a pie tin, but that is because I am a fascist who doesn't want to overeat, and also there's just me and a boy with a limited sweet tooth.)

Melt 1/2 c butter or margarine (or use cooking oil)
add 3/4 c cocoa (might be easier to find than baking chocolate)
Stir well.
Stir in 2 c sugar
4 eggs
1 c flour
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking powder

Beat together about 25 strokes or so-- until mixed. (I've never counted, but just don't stir all night or it'll get flat.)

Bake at 325-350 for 20-25 minutes or until done. Better slightly underdone than overdone.
("Done"= sides pull away from pan a bit, toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Shake it, it won't wobble in the center. If thoroughly confused, try cutting it. If it falls apart, bake it longer. This last method gives you marred brownies, but nobody has ever turned down brownies for cosmetic flaws.)

Unsweetened "baking" chocolate may well indeed be an American thing. Acceptable substitutes are cocoa, as above-- comes in a little tin, is bitter as all fuck, is powder form.
I also just threw out a package from chocolate chips that had a recipe using them for brownies. I noticed that there was a recipe, but had already improvised my own, so I didn't note it down.
But from this we can assume that if one does not find unsweetened chocolate, one may certainly substitute sweetened. I would guess one should up the amount of chocolate involved very slightly, omit the sugar, and then prepare for a slightly less-bulky batch of brownies (as 2c sugar seems rather a lot of bulk). I imagine it would turn out just fine. The thing with brownies is that it's damn nigh impossible to fuck them up. As long as you don't add, like, arsenic, they're going to taste good, as long as you don't burn them.
(I once made a cake and forgot the baking powder. I assure you it was still quite tasty.)


Good luck with everything.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

http://www.google.com/search?q=brownie+recipe+sweetened+chocolate&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

Google hints that many people use sweetened chocolate in their brownies. It shouldn't be a problem.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

That recipe worked brilliantly. Thank you!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

You could find cocoa powder? Excellent.
:)

[hyrnetanga.livejournal.com]

I would guess that sweetened chocolate is an american thing, and unsweetened is just normal chocolate. I think cheap dark chocolate is usually good for cooking, like the asda smart-price stuff (that makes very good chocolate sauce). Whatever you do, don't buy "cooking chocolate" or "chocolate flavoured cake covering" or anything along those lines. They are foul.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Oh no, unsweetened chocolate is most certainly not normal chocolate. It is chocolate that contains no sweeteners. it is also called 'baking chocolate' and by no means is it edible on its own. It is normally quite good quality, but it has absolutely nothing sweet in it-- it's expressly for recipes that rely on the addition of some other sweetening agent.

Substituting normal, sweetened chocolate for "baking" or "unsweetened" chocolate and proceeding with the rest of the recipe unaltered will result in a too-sweet end result.