General Chat

Right, AnutyS. Now you want me to acquire something called tartaric acid. I'm thinking not. And please, flour is measured in cups. Yeesh.

Actually it would be kind of fun to try out somebody's foreign recipe, all measured in strange and wonderful foreign units, and see how it turned out. ;)

I do have a legume cookbook -- and you should see the size of the print in that one, needs binoculars to read it -- that gives the measurements in three systems all at once. Add that to the print size, and you would be right in guessing I've seldom used it. But hey, it was on the remainder table at the hospital cookbook shop, so it was for a good cause!

... Hmm, a google for Loblaw (a big grocery chain here) and self-raising flour finds me a Welsh group's newsletter telling me that Brodies flour is available at Loblaw. Okay.

But. It also tells me that a British "cup" has 10 oz -- a Canadian cup has 8 oz! Aargh. (We're a hybrid here. Our quarts always had 40 oz like the Brit, not 32 like the yank, but our cups had 8 oz ... we're supposed to be metric these days, of course ...)

I'm going to have to translate all these recipes carefully!

Dearie me Aunty to the rescue. Quoting from the CWA Cookbook. Remember this is for the farmers wife.

Self Raising Flour and Baking Powder

Self Raising Flour

5 kg (10 lb) flour (this is plain flour)
60 gr (2 oz) carb soda
125g (4 oz) cream of tartar
1 teaspoon tartaric acid.

Mix all well together, and put through the sifter. Keep in a tin or bag ready for use.

Baking Powder

125 gr (4 oz) carbonate soda
125 gr (4 0z) ground rice
250 gr (8oz) cream of tartar.

Roll the soda thoroughly, add the cream of tartar and roll again. Add the ground rice and roll again. Sift mixture three or four times, and put away in airtight tins or screw-top bottles.


OR

Buy plain flour and baking powder and mix together in the proportion of 2½ lb of plain flour and 1½ oz baking powder.

OR

Just buy self raising flour.

ditto! (about Connie's lyrics and Quoy's comments)

But if we still have any cocoa, Barry's one sounds good as an impromptu dessert.

Doing well here, folks. ;)

I considered putting coconut in my brownies, as I happen to have overbought coconut during the last year (for curry cooking mainly - I'm really not a baker) and have two packages of it in the fridge.

No.1 and I were discussing sweets this morning -- prompted by ... and I shall digress, it's my thread ... the EastEnders I watched yesterday, with Heather (It took me a long time to figure out that's what 'Ev is) trying to avoid stacking cheese in the minute mart because she can't avoid eating it. My cousin from Northamptonshire who visited a few years ago, all over. She was supposedly a vegetarian, in her early 20s. She wasn't a vegetarian. She ate three things: potatoes, cheese and chocolate. Preferably a cheese-stuffed baked potato or three washed down with half a dozen chocolate bars (we found the bag of wrappers in her room after she left). Huuuuge eating disorder. Metabolic syndrome writ large -- she will be hypertensive, high-cholesterol and diabetic by 30, if not already. But hey, she found a Scientologist in the US to marry, so she'll never have to see a therapist.

Anyhow. No.1 told me about working at the grocery store in his youth, and all the chocolate éclairs that got, er, damaged on the way out to the delivery truck and had to be replaced. And people fired for having cream and chocolate icing on their faces. My mother's maiden aunt worked all her life in a candy factory, and she used to bring home the "rejects" -- giant Molly-O bars, coconut covered in chocolate. Mmmmm.

So. Chocolate and coconut, fudgy chocolate cake, fast chocolate cake. I think they all need to be tried! My mum used to make one like the fudgy cake, almost pudding-y. We loved it but kidded her about it, because she just didn't seem to be able to make proper cake. ;)

Now I have to try to find self-raising flour, or at least figure out what the baking powder ratio is so I can do it myself. Google here I come. ... Here we are, 1 tsp baking powder to 1 cup flour. Easy. ... Or not so easy. Someone else says 2 tsp b.p. to 225 grams flour (isn't that a cup?). Someone else says add salt. I'll have to find the definitive answer. This one looks definitive maybe:
3 cups plain flour (maida) + 1 1/2 tbs. baking powder + 1 1/2 tsp. salt

And - I've never been quite sure what caster sugar is. Icing sugar? (Icing sugar has cornstarch in it.) Superfine sugar? Ah. Superfine sugar, it seems. That I'll have to acquire.

We're due for a shop sometime this week. Things to put on the list! And of course, more chocolate ...

Not Cookies/Biscuits/Snack Bars – but will a cake do?

We call it David’s Chocolate Cake after the person who gave me the recipe, or High Days and Holidays as it’s rather rich. If it comes out right, it’s more of a chocolate fudge cake….all gooey and yummy.

Cake ingredients

8oz Plain chocolate
2 tsps vanilla essence
8 oz caster sugar
4 oz plain flour (missed off when originally submitted)
2 tsp baking powder
Good pinch of salt
6 eggs
6 oz slated butter>>>>>SALTED, not Slated!!!!

Icing ingredients

6 oz plain Chocolate
2 – 3 oz caster sugar
4 – 5 tsps water
2 oz salted butter

Method

Line 2 x 8ins sandwich tins with greased, greaseproof paper

Melt the chocolate with vanilla essence in a bowl or pan over very hot water.
Beat butter and sugar until soft and fluffy
Beat in melted chocolate
Separate eggs
Beat yolks into creamed mixture ****
Sift flour, salt, baking powder into mixture and stir in
Wisk egg whites until stiff and lightly fold into mixture with metal spoon.

Transfer mixture equally between cake tins.
Bake mark 4, 355F, 180C for 35/40 mins.
**** If using electric, you might want to add a little milk at this stage as I’ve found it cooks too dry.

Lick out mixing bowls and whisk before washing them properly.

Remove cake from oven and let stand for a few minutes. It should be wrinkly. Turn out, peel off paper before cooling on a wire tray.

Icing

Melt chocolate with the water and sugar.
Stir it smooth, then stir in butter.
Allow it to cool a little, then smooth over cake with a palette knife dipped occasionally in water.

I tend to sandwich the cake with some of the icing, then tip the rest over the top and smooth over all sides.

Lick out the icing bowl, eat the dips from the worktop before running around the kitchen with the sugar rush!

Alright. Taking up the challenge. Here is my Chocolate Fudge Bars. Recipe from my mother about 40 years ago. It is now stored smudged, covered in grease marks and traces of flour in my recipe folder.

4 ozs butter
1 cup brown sugar (soft brown)
1 egg
1 cup self raising flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
pinch salt
½ cup coconut
teaspoon vanilla essence.

Melt butter, mix in sugar and egg. Beat well. Add vanilla, then stir in flour, salt, cocoa and coconut. Spread in well greased lamington tray. Cook 20-25 mins in moderately hot oven. Ice with chocolate icing while still warm, decorate with walnuts or coconut, cut into bars.

Lamington tray would be about a 9 x 13 pan with low sides.


And for my encore I can do Nicety Cakes which contain an eighth of a pint of sherry and currants. But only if you insist.

Okay, I'm going to top the brownies myself -- for anyone who really wants to make themself sick on butter and sugar and chocolate.

Nanaimo bars.

http://www.nanaimo.ca/EN/main/visitors/NanaimoBars.html

"According to local legend about 35 years ago, a Nanaimo housewife entered her recipe for chocolate squares in a magazine contest. In a burst of civic pride, she chose to dub the entry not "Daphne's Delights" or "Mary's Munchies", but "Nanaimo Bars". The entry won a prize, thereby promoting the town as much as her cooking. Some American tourists claim sovereignty over the dessert, referred to as "New York Slice" which is sold in many other places in the world. Nanaimo residents refuse to accept this theory, however, believing that once you set foot on Vancouver Island, there are no other places in the world. The official Nanaimo Bar recipe was available as a handout as well as on quality tea towel and apron souvenirs."

I've never heard of a "New York Slice", for pity's sake.

"In 1986, Nanaimo Mayor Graeme Roberts, in conjunction with Harbour Park Mall, initiated a contest to find the ultimate Nanaimo Bar Recipe. During the four-week long contest, almost 100 different variations of the famous confection were submitted. The winner: Joyce Hardcastle."



Nanaimo Bar Recipe

-- Bottom Layer
½ cup unsalted butter (European style cultured)
¼ cup sugar
5 tbsp. cocoa
1 egg beaten
1 ¼ cups graham wafer crumbs
½ c. finely chopped almonds
1 cup coconut

Melt first 3 ingredients in top of double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, coconut, and nuts. Press firmly into an ungreased 8" x 8" pan.

-- Second Layer
½ cup unsalted butter
2 Tbsp. and 2 Tsp. cream
2 Tbsp. vanilla custard powder
2 cups icing sugar

Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light. Spread over bottom layer.

-- Third Layer
4 squares semi-sweet chocolate (1 oz. each)
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter

Melt chocolate and butter overlow heat. Cool. Once cool, but still liquid, pour over second layer and chill in refrigerator.


They generally come in "squares" about 2"x4". And it's pretty hard to eat more than one without making yrself ill. ;)


So that's Canadian treat #1.

The most Canadian of treats is the butter tart.
I'll dig up my gramma's recipe tonight and add it later.

That must be it. Regular, ordinary - plain! ;)

I made myself some of that self-rising stuff the other day by accident. I was refilling the small container of flour I keep near the stove for thickening gravy and such (as compared to the giant pickle-jar full in the pantry for actual baking, which is not something I do often).

Except that I took down the identical container with baking soda in it instead (that is kept handy for small fires on the stove or in the oven). And topped it up with a cup or so of flour. Didn't look at the big obvious label on the other side until too late.

Got most of the flour out again safely, but now I need a new box of baking soda ...

What we call plain flour then Janey.

I knew I'd get some of the trans-Atlantic lingo wrong - but I did look up that 350-degree business!

White flour here is pastry flour, bread flour or all-purpose flour. We don't do self-rising. ;) We can probably buy it, but ordinarily recipes call for flour + baking powder, rather than all in one.

So all-purpose flour is regular, non-self-rising, ordinary flour.

So now, my devotion/addiction to all things rich, sweet and chocolatey on display, anybody want to turn me on to their own bit of heaven? ;)

Susan# asked, and it deserves a wide audience. ;) I made it for No.1 on Valentine's day, and in return he washed all the bowls I used. (No, no, he bought me chocolates. Luckily, we'd eaten them already on Valentine's Eve. He washed the dishes, too. That's his job.)

From The Joy of Cooking

Oh great, I forgot to bring my reading glasses. What I was saying about thick cookbooks with small print ...



If you want chewy and moist, use a 9x13 pan. (You do.)
If you want them cakey, use a 9x9 pan.

Preheat oven to 350. (I understand this is gas mark 4 in the UK.)

Melt in a double boiler:
- 1/2 cup butter
- 4 oz. unsweatened chocolate squares
(I did this in the microwave on low until they were soft enough to combine)
Cool the mixture. If you don't, your brownies will be heavy and dry.
(I put the large glass mixing bowl in cold water to cool.)

Beat until light in colour and foamy in texture:
- 4 eggs at 70 degrees (room temp)
- 1/4 tsp salt

Add gradually to the egg mixture and continue beating until well creamed:
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla

With a few swift strokes, combine the cooled chocolate mixture with the eggs and sugar.
>> Even if you normally use an electric mixer, do this by hand.

Before all the colours are completely mixed, fold in, by hand
- 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour

Before the flour is completely mixed in, stir in gently
- 1 cup pecan nuts
(I didn't put nuts in; prefer brownies plain)

Bake in a greased 9x13 pan about 25 minutes.
Cut when cool, because the inside is still moist when fresh from the oven.


This does not need icing. It is divinely supremely moist and chewy and chocolatey and delicious just as it is (and this is from me whose 2nd favourite food in the world is chocolate icing). Well worth the dishes used. ;)


For anyone who has to count carbs, 1/8 of the recipe (a very good sized piece) is about 70 grams. Worth having soup and salad for mains, too. ;)


EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT

Having learned so much from this thread about the differences between UK and North American measurements, even when they sound the same, here are some revised ingredients.

NOT 2 cups sugar
but 1 and 5/8 cups sugar

NOT 1 cup flour
but 4/5 cup (plain) flour
[sorry that is a little awkward, but if your 10-oz measuring cup is marked off in fluid ounces, it would be 8 fl oz]

NOT 1/2 cup butter:
1/2 cup butter = 4 fl oz (i.e. by volume not weight)
SO put 10 fl oz (1 UK cup) cold water in a measuring cup and add butter until you get 14 oz
OR just slightly less than 1/4 of 1 pound (454 grams) of butter.


So your ingredients list is:

- 1/4 pound / 110 grams butter
- 4 oz. (112 grams) unsweatened chocolate squares
- 4 eggs at 70 degrees (room temp)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 5/8 cups sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 4/5 cup sifted plain flour

Phew. But trust me, it's still worth it. ;)