MetaChat - kitchen wizards, a little help?

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

31 December 2007

kitchen wizards, a little help? ... can you save this tortured chocolate? →[More:]

The story is, I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies, but can't get chocolate chips. So I got chocolate, and tried to "chip" it. That didn't work. At all. So now, I have about a cup of chocolate crumbs. "Crumbs" may not be the right word, but it's what you get if you put a couple of dark chocolate bars in the blender, and blend. (I tried other methods, first, but never mind... one can not apparently "make" chocolate chips with brute force - at least not with the chocolate I was using.)

So I want to make either fudge or brownies, and it would be great if it was sort of fast and easy because I have a lot of other cooking stuff to do.

I have milk (both canned and 1.5% regular, but not sweetened condensed milk), I have chopped walnuts, flour, eggs, butter, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, vanilla, sugar (white and light brown, plus a bit of dark brown).

Can anyone come up with a way to put some of this together to make some chocolate yum? I know it should be easy, but all the recipes I'm looking at are either asking for things that I don't have (marshmallows, cream cheese, condensed milk), or aren't asking for regular chocolate (like, they want cocoa instead, or unsweetened chocolate) - and I'm not good at improvising when it comes to desserts.

I found this recipe for brownies which seems nice and easy, but it calls for unsweetened chocolate, and I don't know how much sugar to leave out if I use sweet chocolate... plus the amount only comes to about a quarter of a cup, and I have a bit over a cup that I would kind of like to mostly use.

What would you do?

post by: taz at: 10:08 | 14 comments

Brownies:

Ingredients :
100g dark chocolate (at least 60% cocoa solids)
100g walnuts (optional)
110g butter
225g sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
50g flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder (or use self-raising flour)

Makes 15 brownies

Recipe :
1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C (Gas 4), chop nuts roughly and break chocolate into small squares.
2. Melt butter and chocolate together over a low heat.
3. Mix melted butter and sugar in a bowl.
4. Beat eggs then add to mixture.
5. Mix flour with salt and baking powder, then add.
6. Stir mixture thoroughly.
7. Put mixture into a greased baking tray.
8. Bake for 30 minutes, check frequently so as not to over cook. The middle should be sticky, while the outside remains crisp.
10. Leave to cool, dust with icing sugar and cut into squares.

posted by essexjan 31 December | 10:35

perfect!!!

Thank you, Jan!

posted by taz 31 December | 10:36

I can't think of anything to help with this, but in the future you can always just chop the chocolate with a big knife instead of using a blender or anything. Works better if you freeze it first, though.

posted by kellydamnit 31 December | 10:38

Don't forget to save one for me!

posted by essexjan 31 December | 10:41

it's chopped up chocolate! It will keep, so you can wait to use it. I would suggest making pots de creme. In the recipe below, you would simply eliminate all the sugar, but the beauty is, you could taste it while you were making it and if it needed sugar, you would be able to add it with no trouble. I love pot de creme and it can be flavored with booze or coffee. In this recipe, you could do that by replacing half the milk with the other liquid.

2 cups whipping cream
1/2 cup whole milk
5 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped
6 large egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 325°F. Bring cream and milk just to simmer in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat. Add chocolate; whisk until melted and smooth. Whisk yolks and sugar in large bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in hot chocolate mixture. Strain mixture into another bowl. Cool 10 minutes, skimming any foam from surface.

Divide custard mixture among six 3/4-cup custard cups or soufflé dishes. Cover each with foil. Place cups in large baking pan. Add enough hot water to pan to come halfway up sides of cups. Bake until custards are set but centers still move slightly when gently shaken, about 55 minutes. Remove from water. Remove foil. Chill custards until cold, about 3 hours. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover and keep chilled.)

posted by crush-onastick 31 December | 10:43

I did try chopping it, Kelly, but whoah, nellie - chocloate bits were flying all over the kitchen! Maybe I should try with a softer chocolate or something? I used to have an old nut chopper thing that might have done the trick (it had the chopping blades inside a glass container), but it's long gone, and I have never found one to replace it.

And you got it, Jan, miss kitchen Genie! I'll let you know how they come out a little bit later. Yay!

posted by taz 31 December | 10:48

The way I've done it, since I prefer chocolate chunks to chips, is to actually break it into manageable sized pieces, position the knife, lay my whole hand over the knife and chocolate, and press down. So nothing flying!

And I used to have a chopper like that, too. It was awesome. I even used it for tearless onion chopping.
Do they even make them anymore?

posted by kellydamnit 31 December | 11:05

Next time, put the chocolate in a ziploc bag or wrap in a clean kitchen towel, and crush it into chunks with a rolling pin.

posted by Miko 31 December | 11:45

That sounds devilishly good, crush. mmmm.

We've wanted one for so long, kelly, but maybe they don't make them anymore - which is silly since they are amazingly useful. My husband keeps threatening to devise one himself.

Meeks, the ziploc bag and rolling pin sounds like exactly my speed. :)

posted by taz 31 December | 12:23

The brownies came out great! I did increase the flour a bit, because 50 grams just seemed like the tiniest dab... so I don't know if they would be even better if I had stuck strictly to the original recipe. Next time maybe I'll try it with only 50; I was just worried it might be a typo or something. But they are very rich and chocolaty and moist, and nicely (but not "too") dense - not too "poofy", which is exactly what I prefer. So, great! Thank you very much, Jan!

btw, the chocolate chip cookies were supposed to be a part of our new year's American foody theme, but brownies are great for that, too (we made apple pie last week!), so I'm very pleased with the rehabilitation of the grossly abused chocolate. :)

posted by taz 31 December | 14:29

This gave me a mission and I found them, taz!

IKEA, of all places!

and amazon has the kind of nut chopper we always used in my house growing up, which I totally expected to be no longer made since I haven't seen one in a store in a decade at least.
woo woo!

posted by kellydamnit 31 December | 14:53

That Ikea one might do the thing (though it looks very different than the old fashioned goody ones)... plus, whoah, dude, we actually have ikea here, so if it's what we hope it is, I can haz it!

posted by taz 31 December | 15:59

I saw it and was thinking "Ikea is everywhere!" Doesn't look quite as nice as the old glass ones, but better than nothing. Amazon had a few, too.

posted by kellydamnit 31 December | 16:15

I have one of the newish ones kelly linked to. I love it, but you have to smack it down hard to cut stuff and it maks a lot of noise. For onions, I prefer the Vidalia Chop Wizard.

On Ikea being everywhere: When flying into Rome the first thing I recoignized was the Ikea.

posted by youngergirl44 31 December | 18:21

← Everyone be safe out there tonight. || What are your New Year's Eve plans? →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN