Left-over Chocolate

Sounds impossible, doesn't it?  Left-over chocolate?  Like that's possible?

 

Believe it or not, after my chocolate candy making frenzy just before Christmas, I wound up with two small Pyrex bowls of melted chocolate.  Into the refrigerator they went with a "think about you later" kiss.  Today turned out to be the "later" when D turned to me and asked if I was going to do something with that chocolate.

 

"Oh yes," I replied.  "Indeed, I planned to take care of that today."  Okay, so it was a little white lie.  I had planned to do something with the chocolate, and I did plan to do something today.  I just hadn't put those two thoughts into the same sentence at the same time in the same breath.  Until he asked, of course.

 

So I turned on the oven, gathered my baking tools, and searched for all the ingredients I thought I might use.  Then I stood and stared at those two Pyrex bowls of solid chocolate lakes.  Have you ever tried to remove re-solidified chocolate from a container without breaking the container?  I wouldn't have minded losing a Pyrex bowl or two (they don't fit in our new dishwasher and 9 times out of 10 they roll onto their backs and collect twice their capacity in water which I invariably spill down my front when I unload said dishwasher), but D likes those bowls.  Anyway, there are easier ways to do it, but I did get the chocolate out with even a crack in either bowl.  I added the Toll House morsels that were still in recognizable state and went on from there.

 

Cutting this story short, we wound up with tasty chocolate cranberry cookies.  They are chewy the way we like cookies and the taste is quite nice.  Their appearance, however, leaves something to be desired.  First the chocolate.  The cookies look more chocolate streaked than your typical chocolate chip cookies.  Second, I had softened the dried cranberries with hot water (I hate dried fruit - don't even think about raisins! - in cookies because it simply gets harder during the baking).  While that made the cranberries soft, it took away their recognizable shape (raisins do hold on to their wrinkled shape even after my hot water treatment though they do lose their teeth-breaking edge, thank goodness).  Cranberries are by nature a more yielding fruit, I guess.

 

Anyway, the cookies are tasty but not pretty.  There is a use for left-over melted chocolate, after all - but you knew that all the time, didn't you!