"Alex Rast" wrote in message
...
at Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:21:37 GMT in
, (JMF) wrote :


"Alex Rast" wrote in message
.. .
at Fri, 14 Nov 2003 12:42:55 GMT in
,
(Karen) wrote :

Alex Rast wrote:

By my measure, 9 ounces of flour is 2 1/8 cups. So is it 9 ounces
or 1 1/8 cups (5 ounces)?


1 1/8 cups. (I find my old scale has some serious problems)

So the 12 ounces of unsweetened chocolate is really about 8 ounces?
VBG What a disappointment :-).

No, because I didn't need to use a scale for that, I had a
pre-measured amount guaranteed to be 12 oz. So it really is 12 oz
chocolate.

It's really hard to get unsweetened chocolate over here in Europe. Is
there someway to use, say, 70% or even 85% chocolate (e.g. by Lindt) and
somehow adjust the recipe?

I suppose you could, by simply noting that for instance a 70% will thus
have about 30% of its weight in sugar. Thus, you would have to increase
the
amount of chocolate to 17 oz and decrease the amount of sugar by a
commensurate 5 oz. However, I haven't tried it, nor would I recommend it.
The recipe I gave specifies brown sugar, so you'd be taking out molasses
in
the substitution (chocolate uses white sugar) and while you might be able
to compensate with a bit of molasses, everything now is changing and you
might as well start over to create your own scratch recipe.

Furthermore, unsweetened chocolate typically contains more cocoa butter
(about 50%, as opposed to the about 40% of a typical sweetened chocolate),
and that further complicates matters because of the changes in fat ratio.
All in all, I think experimenting would involve exactly that - it wouldn't
be the same recipe - you'd have to tweak everything.

Far better and easier would be to order unsweetened chocolate on-line from
sources in Europe. For instance, Michel Cluizel, makers of the Noir Infini
chocolate that is the chocolate of choice for the recipe (it's the one *I*
use), have a website at http://www.fontaineauchocolat.com. There's also
Domori (http://www.domori.com) who have an excellent unsweetened in the
Puro. In addition, since you're in Italy, it shouldn't be too hard, with a
little searching, to find a shop selling Domori.

Great info. Thanks very much.

John

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:21:37 GMT, JMF wrote:

"Alex Rast" wrote in message
...
at Fri, 14 Nov 2003 12:42:55 GMT in
,
(Karen) wrote :

Alex Rast wrote:

By my measure, 9 ounces of flour is 2 1/8 cups. So is it 9 ounces or 1
1/8 cups (5 ounces)?


1 1/8 cups. (I find my old scale has some serious problems)

So the 12 ounces of unsweetened chocolate is really about 8 ounces?
VBG What a disappointment :-).

No, because I didn't need to use a scale for that, I had a pre-measured
amount guaranteed to be 12 oz. So it really is 12 oz chocolate.

It's really hard to get unsweetened chocolate over here in Europe. Is there
someway to use, say, 70% or even 85% chocolate (e.g. by Lindt) and somehow
adjust the recipe?

So what happens if you use cocoa and butter -- in this case I'd use 9 oz
cocoa, 3 oz butter. I do this all the time with brownies since unsweetened
chocolate isn't easily available in the UK.

Doug

NOTE: My Correct Address is in my signature (just remove the spaces).
On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 21:35:04 +0000, Doug Weller
wrote:

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:21:37 GMT, JMF wrote:

"Alex Rast" wrote in message
...
at Fri, 14 Nov 2003 12:42:55 GMT in
,
(Karen) wrote :

Alex Rast wrote:

By my measure, 9 ounces of flour is 2 1/8 cups. So is it 9 ounces or 1
1/8 cups (5 ounces)?


1 1/8 cups. (I find my old scale has some serious problems)

So the 12 ounces of unsweetened chocolate is really about 8 ounces?
VBG What a disappointment :-).

No, because I didn't need to use a scale for that, I had a pre-measured
amount guaranteed to be 12 oz. So it really is 12 oz chocolate.

It's really hard to get unsweetened chocolate over here in Europe. Is there
someway to use, say, 70% or even 85% chocolate (e.g. by Lindt) and somehow
adjust the recipe?

So what happens if you use cocoa and butter -- in this case I'd use 9 oz
cocoa, 3 oz butter. I do this all the time with brownies since unsweetened
chocolate isn't easily available in the UK.

Its the dreaded Cadbury Curse, innit? All that milk powder shoving
out the taste of the cocoa.

You can use the Green & Blacks dark chocolate - while it isn't all
that great for plain eating, its great in brownies.

(If a tad expensive.)

--
Davida Chazan (The Chocolate Lady)
davida @ jdc . org . il
~*~*~*~*~*~
"What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of
chocolate."
--Katharine Hepburn (May 12, 1907 - June 29, 2003)
~*~*~*~*~*~

at Sat, 29 Nov 2003 21:35:04 GMT in
,
(Doug Weller) wrote :

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:21:37 GMT, JMF wrote:

It's really hard to get unsweetened chocolate over here in Europe. Is
there someway to use, say, 70% or even 85% chocolate (e.g. by Lindt)
and somehow adjust the recipe?

So what happens if you use cocoa and butter -- in this case I'd use 9 oz
cocoa, 3 oz butter. I do this all the time with brownies since
unsweetened chocolate isn't easily available in the UK.


See my very detailed explanation for substituting cocoa and butter for
straight chocolate posted to rec.food.baking: "Re : Need exchange of
chocolate to cocoa powder". It contains probably more information than
you'd want to know about substitution.

In the case of the brownies, I think the cocoa/butter substitution would
make them more "cakey", at least to some degree and certainly crisper
around the edges. It'd also be somewhat more temperature-sensitive in the
oven. But I haven't experimented with this approach on the brownies so I
can't give you a definitive answer. Why don't you try it (following my
substitution calculations) and tell us how they turned out? I don't think
they'll come out *really* wrong or awful.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)