Chocolate is the answer. What was the question?
Even back in my pre-ME days I didn’t do heat well. And now it’s like after the stampeding buffalo have knocked me down the M4A3E8 76 mm armed Sherman tank ploughs me under.* It’s not even all that hot—but it’s that kind of heavy fuggy muggy that feels like you’re in the middle of an unpleasant supernatural event—being swallowed by a goblin, say—all the time. I’m sure there’s no air in this air.
It has not been a wonderful day. I struggled out of bed possibly even later than usual, climbing hand over hand out of heavy muggy dreams about being swallowed by goblins, and then the hellhounds and I vied to be last on our morning not-a-hurtle. Gah. I did obtain a little light relief this afternoon trying to convince Oisin that he really needs the three hand-made oak keyboards with the matching pedalboard that he is trying to convince himself he does not need for his amazing electronic organ. I believe his response was something like, Isn’t it time you were leaving?
Southdowner and B_twin hadn’t been having the best day of their lives either. Partly because I kept saying ‘Mottisfont’ at them** they decided to go . . . to Mottisfont today. It was closed. We’re in the middle of high rose season for at least another fortnight, and the National Collection of Old Roses is CLOSED ON A FRIDAY? What?
And then tower bell practise was kind of a . . . disaster. In the first place it was a teeming melee*** and . . . ahem . . . the weather was perhaps not conducive to good temper in a small crowded ringing chamber.† Southdowner and B_twin haven’t positively said they won’t come back, but by the end when we could all spill out into the comparative presence of air outdoors, all I wanted to do was creep home and find something to hide under. Sigh.
B_twin suggested chocolate. And in a moment of urgency like this one you want fast chocolate.†† And we haven’t had a recipe in Days in the Life forever. So here’s two recipes suitable for a fast fix on a lousy day. While the first one is ‘setting’ in the refrigerator you make the second one. They’re both adaptations from Helge Rubinstein’s The Chocolate Book with a little recent additional help from the (ahem ahem) Green & Black’s Chocolate cookbook. The second one is even called ‘Chocolate Lightning Thins’, Rubinstein says, for ‘the speed with which these are made and eaten.’
Crunchy Cookie Bars
2T butter
8 oz dark chocolate
2T golden syrup or dark corn syrup
8 oz plain digestive biscuits, rich tea biscuits, vanilla wafers or graham crackers (If you Americans can get them, I vote for the digestives. Twenty years ago you could get them in gourmet shops; I don’t know if they’ve migrated or disappeared. Failing digestives graham crackers are my second choice . . . which so far as I know you still can’t get over here. I used to bring them back in my suitcase—although there are a few ‘American groceries’ in London where you can get wild, wacky things like bittersweet chocolate and Oreos. And graham crackers.)
¼ c, approximately, chopped nuts. I used to favour caramelised almonds, but I haven’t seen them lately
Icing sugar and cocoa powder
Melt (gently) the butter, chocolate and syrup together and stir till entirely blended. Roughly smash the biscuits/crackers with a rolling pin—don’t do a good job. You want big fat crumbs and some small pieces. Mix them and your chopped nuts into the rest. Pour into a well greased 8” tin and put in the refrigerator for several hours. When they’re rigid, tip them out of the tin, cut into small bars, and roll briefly in icing sugar and cocoa powder. (Well, ‘roll’. I use two shallow dishes, one of each, and sweep each bar through one and then the other. This makes a nice show on a plate because each one looks a little different, and if you’re serving them to an assembled, it makes them look a lot ritzier than they are. It’s all in presentation. And the chocolate, of course.)
While you’re waiting for them to chill, make the Chocolate Lightning Thins
¼ c butter
½ rounded c sugar
2 eggs
¾ c flour
4 T cocoa powder
¼ c chopped or shaved (not too fine) dark chocolate
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 T sugar
Set your oven 400° F.
Build your dough as usual: cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time, beat fluffy, then beat in flour and cocoa powder, blah blah. Stir in chocolate. Spread and pat on a greased cookie sheet—not more than ¼” thick. Blend cinnamon and sugar together and sprinkle (evenly, duh) over the top.
Bake about 20 minutes, till the edges are turning brown and pulling in, leave to cool for a few minutes only, then cut in small squares. It’s easier if you leave them in the pan a few minutes after this till they’re safe to move, and then slide them off onto a wire rack. They’ll turn crunchy as they cool, and Rubinstein also says ‘should preferably be eaten on the day of making’. By the time you get to the end of these and that gooey novel you’ve been promising yourself, the bars should be ready to come out of the refrigerator. . . .
* * *
* Just by the way, why did the British name their tanks after American Civil War generals?
** I spent most of yesterday murmuring ‘Mottisfont’ in a mesmeric sort of way and then just to make sure, painted mystic rose runes all over the axles of Southdowner’s van while she and B_Twin were innocently having dinner at the pub. Those runes are pretty powerful. She may find her dogs fetching rosebushes home in their teeth. . . .
*** And I was very grateful that Niall was there to deal with it.
† And I went wrong in Grandsire doubles. The shame, the shame. The thing is . . . I am missing Ditherington practise. Badly. Ditherington practise, which is no more, which is where I learnt Grandsire doubles . . . and Stedman doubles. And I’m a grind, right? I can only keep ringing what I do ring. Cambridge Surprise, hell—call myself a bell ringer? I need to be able to ring Grandsire doubles.
†† B_twin had, in fact, brought chocolate. Clearly a queen among women.
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