Weekend ups and downs, and cake rec

[nineveh_uk]

I know, I thought on Friday afternoon after a busy (half) week of work. I will do the hoovering know, removing the infuriating bits of navy fluff all over the carpets, and then I will not need to do any housework over the weekend and can luxuriate in time and do art and write fic and maybe even review it. And I did hoover, and then spent the entirety of Saturday feeling rubbish, watching skiing, whinging at antisoppist, re-watching a rom-com with frequent pauses, and worst of all not having any cake/ I needed cake, but I had no cake and could face neither making nor going out into the cold to purchase it.

Happily today I felt brighter and therefore did some art, wrestled 500 words of fic into submission** (though not without taking some punches), and most important of all, made Nigella Lawson's emergency brownies. Inevitably I slightly overcooked them*, so they are not as squidgy as they might be, but they are very acceptable. I also have squirty cream kept for such emergencies, and am going to learn from this and ensure that tomorrow's supermarket order contains adequate amounts of cake-like substances so I am not left clawing the pantry shelves and finding only out of date KitKats. And tomorrow heralds the end of the cold weather so I can stopped feeling constantly pinched and actually leave the house, hurray!

*I do this with brownies and thus set the timer very conservatively, but they were not parting from the side of the tin like the recipe said they would, so I let them carry on a bit. Mistake.

**That venerable sub-genre, Prince Jing finds out.

Comments

[white_hart]

Emergency brownies sound like a very good thing.

Ever since we got a microwave I have found myself wondering about mug cakes as a solution to being out of cake when cake is clearly called for, but I haven't had an opportunity to try as we always do seem to have cake these days.

[antisoppist]

Out of date kitkats does not compute.

I'm glad the brownies worked. When I saw Nigella making them on telly, it sounded like she was in exactly your situation. When I make her normal ones (which are in fact her cream cheese ones but without the cream cheese), I get 9 out of a square tin and the middle one is too gloopy and the corners are too solid. The four in the sides are the best ones. I probably need to experiment with oven temperature.

[sir_guinglain]

KitKats are part of my current method of cheering up the household, along with going through the £2 chocolate box shelves in the Co-op (which are nearly exhausted - next, the £4 shelves).

[executrix]

Could out-of-date KitKats be smashed up, soaked in some tasty substance and formed into something like bourbon balls or cake pops, or smashed, toasted slightly to get rid of the stale taste, and used to top ice cream? (Nigella Lawson describes smashed-up chocolate for ice cream as "rubble.")

[mrs_redboots]

That emergency brownie recipe would be fine if only I could tolerate golden syrup, but, as it is, I don't ever have it in the house. Mug cake is definitely edible, although not perfect. But we hardly ever do have cake.

[carbonel]

I have a family brownie recipe that I have made zillions of times, but I finally added a note to the recipe that if I wait until it looks done and a toothpick comes out clean, it will be overdone, and just take it out of the oven when the times says. Because otherwise my tendency was to do much the same as you, and end up with slightly overdone brownies. And really, the failure mode of underdone brownies is much nicer.