Hi Mom

[redbird]

adrian_turtle reminded me it's Mother's Day, so I called my mother. She, like me, had forgotten the holiday--I told her she'd been living in England too long. We had a nice chat, and she said I'd made her day.

She's looking into tickets for a trip to the U.S. in mid- to late June, centered on the 50th anniversary party of some very old and close friends of hers, close enough that she is not only invited to this family party, but will be going up to Geneva to stay with the anniversary couple afterwards.

Adrian and I had callunav and her partner juliansinger over for tea yesterday: I made apple spice cakelings (we were out of vanilla extract, so I used extra ginger and added some cardamom), Adrian made chocolate orange brownies, and we drank lots of tea, then went to a nearby Japanese restaurant for supper.

It's mostly been a good weekend for sitting inside and talking; right now Adrian is on the phone with her mother, and I'm going to post this and go back to my book.

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

juliansinger, with whom we had dinner in Boston last June. :)

chocolate orange brownies

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Ohh, those sound good. The only question remains is whether I'll have time to make a testing batch before the WisCon bake sale.

Re: chocolate orange brownies

[redbird]

We used one of the recipes on the King Arthur Flour web page (since it's no longer printed on the bags of flour), substituting equal amounts of (Penzey's) orange extract for the vanilla extract it calls for.

[redbird]

Thanks; fixed (yesterday, in fact).

Re: chocolate orange brownies

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

This may actually be on the King Arthur bags of ordinary unbleached all-purpose flour, but I was using their whole wheat flour (which has only a bread recipe printed on it) and mixing it with Gold's unbleached all-purpose (it must be "all-purpose," because I don't believe there's actually a market for snickerdoodle flour.)


Wicked Easy Orange Fudge Brownies (after King Arthur)
preheat oven to 375F
1 cup flour
2 cups sugar (I prefer 1.5 cups)
0.75 cup cocoa (I use dutch process, but natural works fine)
0.25 tsp salt
0.25 tsp baking powder
3 large eggs
1 stick butter or margarine, melted and cooled
0.25 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (we substituted orange extract)

Put all ingredients in a large bowl in the order listed. (I cannot bring myself to throw whole eggs on top of unmixed dry ingredients. But you're supposed to, if you have sufficient faith in your eggs.) Stir, then beat until smooth. Spoon the batter into a lightly greased 9x13" pan. It makes a thin layer of very stiff batter, but try to get it in the corners. Bake 25-30 minutes, until the sides pull away from the pan and it smells done. Poke halfway between the middle and the edge if you believe in poke tests.

The nice people at King Arthur Flour may know flour, and these are lovely brownies, but I don't think of them as particularly fudgey. They have the texture of chewy cookies. I sometimes add 0.5 cup grated coconut to the standard recipe (the one with vanilla extract), but I probably would not for a group of strangers, considering that coconut is not universally beloved. I might add a few spoonfuls of dried orange peel to the chocolate-orange version next time I make it.

Re: chocolate orange brownies

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

They're rrrrreally good.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

*grin* was good to meet you. (Though I think I've seen you at a few cons.) Pleasant sort of evening.

[redbird]

Very much so: seeing someone in passing isn't the same as knowing and liking someone, though it can lead to that.