In a little over six weeks (46 days, to be exact) we're closing on the sale of our current house...
...and in a little over ten weeks, we're closing on the purchase of our new home with this fabulous view!
Yes, I realize there's a four week gap there. I'll talk about how we end up dealing with that in future posts.
Right now I'm more concerned with packing and sorting, using and storing, and that brings me to my kitchen fail.
We had a funeral at our church last week, and I volunteered to be one of several people to take a dessert to serve with the catered lunch. Great! I had chocolate in my pantry left over from Christmas baking, so I made plans to use it up. I knew just the recipe!
Oh. Wait. I packed up that cookbook already.
No worries! We have the Yankee Belle Cafe! I knew one of us had shared this recipe at some time, and sure enough. It was one of Ruthy's.
Here's the link to Ruthy's post - a favorite at our house: Ruthy's Scotcheroos
I checked the ingredients, bought a couple things I didn't have in my pantry, and got ready for an early Saturday morning Scotcheroo session.
Everything was great until I was ready to melt the chocolate. Keep in mind that this is the last part of the recipe, so my time was beginning to get a little tight. I usually melt my chocolate in the microwave and it works every time.
Usually.
Not this time. This time the chocolate seized up on me. Think of one big, hard chocolate chip with bits of butterscotch chips mixed in. The more I tried to melt it, the harder it got.
So I went to the internet to do some research. It seems that chocolate will seize up if it comes into contact with a bit of water during the melting. So steam might be the culprit if you're using a double-boiler. But in the microwave?
Maybe my problem was that I mixed different kinds of chocolate as I was trying to use up my pantry stash. Maybe it was the butter that Ruthy adds to hers - did I add it at the wrong time? Maybe it was because I tried to double the recipe.
In the long run it didn't matter, because my chocolate was the consistency of mortar and hardening quickly.
And the clock was ticking.
The cure, one website said, was to add more water, then whisk away.
It sounded crazy to me, but I tried it.
I was pretty dubious. I divided my chocolate mess in half, and added 1/4 cup hot water to about 3 cups of chocolate and butterscotch chips. Then I whisked it together.
Wow! It was like magic!
Before long, the chocolate was the perfect consistency for the recipe. I finished up, made it to the funeral on time, and everyone appreciated the cookies.
Whew!
So the morals to the story: Don't try to make cookies at the last minute, and you CAN trust SOME of the things you read on the internet.
Have you ever used the internet to help fix a kitchen fail?
Jan Drexler spent her childhood dreaming of living in the Wild West and is now thrilled to call the Black Hills of South Dakota her home. When she isn’t writing she spends much of her time satisfying her cross-stitch addiction or hiking and enjoying the Black Hills with her husband of more than thirty-six years.
How odd that adding more water would fix the problem. I wouldn't have thought of that! I think my kitchen fails are so epic that even the Internet couldn't save me. lol But I'm always googling help before I start with a recipe. Like how much is a stick of butter. American recipes always say that but up here a stick of butter is 2 cups and surely they can't mean that!
ReplyDeleteOy to the packing up and moving...and I'm intrigued by that four week gap. Imagining you in a gyspy caravan nestled in the woods perhaps? Or a yurt in a field?
I never would have thought of adding water, either! I was amazed that it worked.
DeleteAnd that butter thing... I appreciate recipes that say "8 Tablespoons" or "1/4 pound" instead of "one stick" of butter. We can buy one pound boxes of butter that aren't divided into sticks, but butter is mostly sold in one pound boxes containing four 1/2 cup sticks, each wrapped in wax paper. You wouldn't think there would be such a difference between countries that are so close, would you?
That four week gap is going to be...interesting. We have some possibilities, so we'll see how it will all work out. We know God has a plan. :-)
Jan, I've had to fix that problem before too! I think I added milk or cream. It's a nightmare! I'm so glad you were able to get it ready in time without having to throw the whole thing out.
ReplyDeleteI'm excited about your move! Of course, I don't have to do all the packing, so it's easy for me to say. ;)
I look forward to hearing the saga of the missing weeks. Good luck with the packing! I think you deserve some "I'm packing ,"Scotcheroos.
ReplyDeleteI also love that the Cafe can serve as a virtual cookbook. :)
I didn't get over here yesterday, but I love Scotcheroos! My old neighbor gave me that recipe about 40 years ago, I was a young mom and she served them at a neighborhood picnic and I've been in love ever since!
ReplyDeleteAnd isn't that funny with chocolate? That a tiny bit seizes it (and I've had that happen when I'm hurrying for a dipping chocolate.... and then you can't water it, because you need dipping chocolate to harden, so I add smidges of oil....)
But yes, if you're using it for other things, the water does the trick, just like a chocolate syrup or fudge...
But it's so scary!!!!!!
Hey, you come stay with me for those weeks.
You'll miss the boys on Rushmore, but you won't miss the Sturgis rally, I expect! :)