Chocolate (again)!

Hey dudes! This time, I have an actual post, about actual food, with actual photos. That's right, after about five minutes of internet cafe time, I finally figured out how to open my camera on this darned maschine. So, let's get down to business.

One Sunday afternoon, I had a lot of free time. I wanted to do something. I eventually decided to make brownies for my class-group, after gnawing on a block of chocolate I had bought to make cocoa with. Don't worry, I cut off the bits I had chewed on. No, I'm not joking. Continuing on, I didn't have many problems making the actual batter. That was all fine. My one hurdle was the pan. All of the utensils, pans, etc, in this kitchen have been donated over the years by the inhabitants of my apartment. In this building, it's a 'communal' kitchen concept, and everyone is allowed to use any object (NOT THE FOOD) whenever they want. Oddly enough, there aren't any rectangular pans, there aren't any cake pans, there aren't any square pans, etc. There is only...a loaf pan. The commercial loaf pans over here are different, they are longer and thinner. So, what's a girl to do with a huge bowl of batter, and only one loaf pan?



Invent the brownie loaf, naturally.

It took two rounds of baking, and I added the powdered sugar later. Everyone liked them, and my instructor asked for the recipe, but I think they were only so-so. There wasn't enough chocolate flavor. I always have that issue with scratch brownies, though. I am too fond of the boxed mixes.

Now, this happened before the brownies were made. I wandered around on a hill for a few hours that Sunday morning, somehow getting myself lost on nature trails while trying to find a 433 meter tall lookout tower on the top of said here. I don't know how I did it. The view (on an exceptionally hazy day) looked like this.


The spiral staircase to the top was really scary. You should all be proud of me.

Afterwards, I decided to treat myself to some cake in a cafe. I had heard about a good place, called Cafe Max. I accidentally found it, and decided to pop in. What I ended up ordering, somehow, was more of a tort than a cake. To inform those who don't know, these people seem to like their tort. A tort is more of a...pudding-y thing than a cake. The bottom layer (I swear) was pie crust, topped with a thin layer of yellow cake, and then...some kind of custard, which contained some kind of alcohol-soaked...things. I don't know what they were, but I don't think they were fruit. It was odd. Then, it was topped with whipped cream, and some chocolate shavings. It also looked like this.

It wasn't half bad.

And that, folks, is it.