Chocolate Box fics

Reveals have happened so I can claim the two Chocolate Box fics I wrote as treats:

Title: Easing the Burden
Fandom/Rating: Sherlock Holmes, rated PG
Word Count: 657 words
Summary: After an exceptionally long and terrible day all Watson wanted was to slip into Baker Street and go to sleep. That was, thankfully, not to be.
Author's Note: Written for tjs_whatnot.

Easing the Burden

Title: To Not Exceed the Limit
Fandom/Rating: The Losers, rated PG
\Word Count: 4223
Summary: Things that Clay had been careful not to see come to light at the worst, or perhaps best, moment.
Author's Note: Written for tommygirl.

To Not Exceed the Limit

As someone who doesn't really read or write PWP this isn't really an exchange with a lot for me to read, but I've heard lots of good things about the original fic section and in the various mega fandoms so if that's something that tickles your fancy you can check out the whole collection here.

Chubby Bubby's Challah

(I posted this on LJ's vintage-recipes back in 2010 but wanted to have it here in case that journal ever gets deleted. I haven't made it recently since it's a lot of work, but it makes the best challah I've ever eaten.)

Chubby Bubby was my grandmother's mother. She considered having a fresh challah for the Sabbath table one of the utmost important things for a person to have so, every Friday morning (other than during Passover and the Friday she was in labor with my grandmother- a fact she NEVER let my grandmother forget) from when she got married in 1904 until she was admitted into a care facility in 1973 she got up early to start the dough.

She passed on the tradition, teaching her daughters and daughters-in-law the 'proper' way to make challah, although most wound up buying their bread instead, much to her dismay. 20 someodd years ago I called my grandmother, who luckily still had the notecard where she'd jotted down the recipe, and asked her to walk me though preparing Chubby Bubby's challah.

Getting a recipe that worked and I could understand was a little more difficult. This is how the conversation went:

G: First whisk two yeast cakes into lightly heated water
Me: How much water?
G: Oh, enough
Me: What temp?
G: Warmer than for regular bread
Me: Umm.. okay
G: Then add 3 cups fresh flour and 1 of sugar, put it in the stove to rise. While that's rising combine 5 cups flour, about a half cup of sugar and a pinch or two of salt. Then, using your fingers rub in a pound of good schmaltz until it resembles a coarse meal.
Me: Schmaltz?
G: Use butter, I'm sure you can't find schmaltz where you live. When that's done set it aside and take out the yeast mixture and beat into it five eggs and a bissel of honey to sweeten your week.
Me: A bissel?
G: More than a smidge, less than a splash, you know, a bissel.
Me: Oh right... a bissel (still had no clue)
G: Work the flour mixture into the yeast and adding extra flour if needed, but not too much. Knead and put it in an oiled bowl to rise until midmorning.
Me: How long is that?
G: Until it's risen enough. Then, when it's ready punch it down; divide and braid up three challahs as a four braid.
Me: A four braid?
G: Bubbleh always said six braids for the barimer, three for the pisher, four for the baleboose. {As near as I can tell Chubby Bubby altered a Yiddish phrase about a braggart, a fool/simpleton and a clever housewife for this} Let them rise until the afternoon, brush with a beaten egg and put in a hot oven for a bit before letting the temperature drop to a moderate oven.

Needless to say it took a bit of trial and error to turn that recipe into something that worked. After a number of attempts what I came up with was:

( Read more... )

To make a four braid challah:
Roll out four "ropes" of dough and lay them side by side.
Working from left to right do an over-under-over weave - rope 1 goes over rope 2 then under rope 3 then over rope 4 to be in the furthest right place.
Repeat (taking the leftmost rope, 2, and bringing it over 3, under 4 then over 1; followed by 3 over 4, under 1 and over 2) until done.
Pinch bottoms and tops shut, folding any extra dough under the loaf.