best brownies in the known universe (at least, according to my grandma)
some year and a half ago when i was getting ready to move out i combed through all the family recipes that lay lost to time and one of the ones that i found was my grandmas brownie recipe. idk where she got it from (nor can i ask cause she has dementia) and its a printed out email she sent to my mom in june 2000. but by george these the best brownies i have ever tasted. would she be pleased that i am sharing this recipe with my vast following? absolutely.
YOU WILL NEED:
5 tablespoons butter (unsalted)
1 ounce unsweetened baking chocolate (or as much as your heart desires)
2/3 cup unsweetened good cocoa powder
1 cup sugar (white) (superfine preferred, normal works fine)
1 cup sifted white flour (can use gluten free)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
as much cinnamon as your heart desires (your heart needs to desire at least some cinnamon. its essential to the recipe)
3 egg whites
1 egg
splash of vanilla extract (again, non negotiable step!)
preheat your oven to 325 degrees. grease a square baking pan (9x9 preferably).
in a small saucepan over medium heat melt the butter and baking chocolate. while that is melting, sift together the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a small bowl. once the butter and chocolate is done melting add the cocoa powder and cook it together for 1 minute. add in the sugar and stir. it will get very thick. this is correct.
set that aside to cool. while thats cooling take a large bowl and put in your egg whites, egg and vanilla. beat it up with preferably a whisk but you can use a fork if youre fresh out of whisks. once the chocolate is cool enough to not scramble your eggs dump it in the eggs and mix it together. add the flour in gradually and keep mixing until its smooth and happy.
spread into your greased baking pan. put it in the oven for EXACLTLY 18 MINUTES. very crucial step. they will come out slightly under done. that is what we want. as they cool they will continue to cook in the pan. we dont want them to get hard and sad. they are not good when they are hard and sad. do not overbake them. you will be sad.
slice them up and as the official last step on the original recipe says: EAT ENJOY AND MAKE MORE! (theyre very good with mint chocolate chip ice cream)
RECIPE IN GRAMS cause it was bugging me, op i hope you dont mind (i did the math but any correction is welcome yall)
70g unsalted butter (there's salted?? the things i learn on here)
28g+ baking chocolate (google tells me this is a chocolate bar that has little to no sugar in it and no its not the same as dark chocolate)
65g unsweetened cocoa powder
200g extrafine white sugar (or granulated sugar if you must. This is *not* powdered sugar btw. powdered sugar has a different cup-to-grams ratio. Id never heard of extrafine sugar before but i went on a google rabbit hole and yeah it exists here too lol)
120g white flour
2,8g baking powder (lets make this 3g yall we're all gonna eyeball it anyway cmon)
Cinnamon (to taste, at least a little bit is needed for real tho)
3 egg whites
1 egg
A splash of vanilla extract
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Preheat oven to 160-165°C (325°F is technically 162,7 but ehhh you do you)
Grease a square baking pan (23x23cm or as close as you can get i guess)
for real tho everyone saying they want to make these as graduation treats/study snacks is warming my heart my grandma is a big fan of academia and worked at a bookstore for several years she would love to know her brownies are making their way around as study motivation
I cant stop thinking about the idea of isat having fandom, and people writing rpf about the saviors
I know the isat world doesnt have internet but fandoms and fanfic predates internet. Plus they have craft and thats gotta be worth something
But basically I want them to discover fanfic and mirabelle (who is absolutely a fandom girlie) is like "GUYS WE REALLY SHOULDNT BE LOOKING AT THIS TRUST ME" but no one listens
And theres like. "Mom sold me to the saviors of vaugarde" like those old one direction fics
And self-insert fics. And just really. Really inaccurate stuff
And everyone deeply regrets not listening to mirabelle
How does Saiki feel once that time loop is finally over. We know he was glad that people could live on now but like, doesn’t it feel wrong for things to move. If you spend so long in the same year over and over, eventually you get so used to it that things feel as if they’ll never change. Saiki wakes up on a day that shouldn’t have arrived should’ve arrived years ago. When he finally gets to graduation everything just feels off. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to go on summer vacation and then return back to PK Academy. Not go out into the world. Not worry about college or jobs. Not ever move out and away from his parents. Not watch his best friends grow up and have children. Aren’t they still 17 and laughing at Nendo’s stupidity. When did they all get so old.
One day he arrives at his father’s funeral, in a town that hasn’t changed has changed so much in the last few decades. His mother is crying by his side when did she get so many wrinkles. His friends try to cheer him up. Nendo, the Highschool idiot the salaryman, invited him to go out for ramen “just like the good old days.” Kaidou, the groups adorable chuunibyo the famous fantasy writer, scolds him for it. As they walk back through the town it feels like nothing has changed, if only for a second. By the time he gets home to his parents house, having agreed to spend a few days in his old room to comfort his mom, he finds himself wishing he could go back. Back to when they were all still together. Back to before life got in the way of being themselves.
So maybe, it wasn’t the worst thing when his limiter fell off that night. When he woke to an alarm he hasn’t set in more the two decades. “Time to get ready for school Ku-Chan. Me and your father are waiting.” Just maybe, this wasn’t so bad.
Here is the closure stargazer post I mentioned. I’ll write down all of the things I had somewhat planned here:
Looping mechanic:
The loop ends when the candle she used to grant her wishes burns out before she fullfill her wish: She has a time limit. When she is too stressed the candle burns faster. When something happens that make her feel like she can no longer fullfill her wish the candle is blown out before the time limit ends.
She always loops back to Dormont, where she lit up the candle. She has no connection to the universe like Loop and Sif, so cannot choose to shortcut to a floor in the house. She is dependent on this candle, which stays lit in dormond when she goes to the house.
This comic shows a lot of trust in Loop, caise if they pit out tthe candle's fire, she'll loop back.
Once she is out of the loops, the sight of lit candles makes her sick.
Why wouldn’t Odile’s loop end when she talks to the head housemaiden?
Euphrasie isn’t a stranger to Odile, she is a friend from before the journey started. Since the loops were born out of Odile wishes, and one of said wishes was to be able to talk to her old friend again, she has her wish granted, she can talk to euphrasie.
The loop breaks when everyone decides to travel together, and euphrasie agrees to have a sleepover with the saviors (odile want all of her friends). Housemaiden duties don't allow Euphy to leave the House, but they’ll stay in contact throught letters and craft that allows said letters a fast travel.
Big timeloop issue:
Instead of seeing the party as actors and following a script, Odile becomes controlling. She never loses her wish to keep them safe but despite looking very composed externally, taking a while to stop doing things that waste time (such as letting Siffrin get the hug in the clocktower and calm Mirabelle down in the house) the stress makes her have a slow but dangerous mentality shift: She is the one that knows what’s best for the party, what will make them happy.
Loop does notice she is growing controlling and they are of great help making her realize the path she is heading towards. It’s a mistake she had made before, so it REALLY it fed into her belief that she is a cold and uncaring person deep down.
The star door room and choice:
Usually Siffrin forgets about their study but if Odile visits the star door room, the one with the orery and broken telescope, they remember their study again and have a breakdown, because if they forgot something as important as their life long research, what else did they forget? Is the party really their first friends? Did he had siblings? Parents? A lovers? Children? What was his life? Will he forget this party too?
Whether he remembers or not depends on Odile’s choice to visit the room, which she usually doesn’t because of how much time it wastes and how distressed Siffrin gets, she doesn’t want him to get back to his study and starve himself over an unhealthy research again. It is better if he doesn’t remember. She does that to every party member. Any choice she makes that brings them distress is better to not be experienced at all.
In the last loop they do not go to the star room before defeating the King so the stargazer doesn’t remember their study. Odile does show Siffrin the room after some rest. They don’t remember where exactly their study is located, but everyone agrees that after reuniting Bonnie and Nille, they’ll help Siffrin search for their study.
Moving from Rire:
Cherche got close to the people in Rire so being forgotten hurt. He was slowly destroying any good memory he had of these people.
Take Galle as an exemple: She is a nice woman who works at a bar and let the researcher sleep in her house before going on his travels (the town convinced him to take a nap and travel well rested). They like Galle. Galle is so nice! But since she work at a bar he usually visits her when he is at his lowest and need a drink.
He can never have a meaningful talk with her, he can talk about his dreams or his fear of death and he'll forget in a blink of an eye. He knows logically it is not her fault but he still grows to resent her. Galle is a horrible listener.
This deterioration was happening to everyone and he wanted it to stop, so he moved away, got on a boat and wished for the universe to take him somewhere that at least reminds him of home.
Cherche:
He had promised to only use his real given name before the curse, but being forgotten so fast is TERRIBLE for his mental health and teh lack of progress was getting to them. He will anything he can to feel more real.
In universe, the name is a mix of craft researchers he admires and read about. Outside universe I just find it cool, is french for "Look for" and is a shorter version of "chercheur" which means "researcher/seeker/persuer/so on".
Croissant incident:
At one point their curse of being forgotten got powerful enough to impact anyone who touched Cherche. Whoever touched him forget their own name while looking at Cherche. It’s horrifying to everyone involved.
When Cherche finds the “Do you remember?” person that also comes from the island, Cherche tells them everything he knows, begging them not to blink and forget, the baker promises not to and reaches for them. The moment cherche is touched the baker forgets, but since they are both from the island (more in tune with the universe and it’s curses) and have been told things no one should know about the island, the curse affect is stronger on them and stays even when cherche leaves.
This event traumatized cherche. They no longer visited cities to restock after. Only relying on scavenging. They eat very little.
[You will always remember this]
I used [you will always remember this] in the name comic. Siffrin doesn’t remember timeloops, so what does this message means here? It means that they will hold on to this new memory, always remember it when he wakes up, but that an old memory was lost to make space for this new memory. Any time he ‘always remember’ something it means they forgot something about their study.
Pineapple incident:
Mira blames herself for giving them the pineapples. Bonnie blames themselves for loving pineapples and wanting him to taste their favorite fruit. Odile did everything she could but there wasn’t much she could do, so she felt like a failure. Isabeau feels extremely ashamed because he panicked and was of barely any help when siffrin needed him most: he is still a coward. (Traveler isa didn’t get any defendors training, he is bad at emergency situations)
Everyone was deeply affected by this event because they genuinely thought Siffrin would die. Meanwhile this was the first time in a decade that the stargazer recovered from a death in a warm bed while surrounded by loved ones instead of alone on a cold floor. He felt extremely loved and considered it a good memory. They get an [you will always remember this] moment, subconsciously prioritizing the love of his party over his lonely study.
What are the stargazer’s scars from?
The ones on his hand are a craft booster, they wouldn’t be able to borrow the power of the stars or use blackhole without it. The one on their chest is the result of an imperfect resurrection ritual, Siffrin once said ‘A craft master can avoid death and come back without a scar’ but he wasn’t always a craft master.
Why are some of Cherche's books red?
Cherche got it from the island. He can’t get back to it so he wishes for things from it. The star pins of their clothes, the rocks on their night glasses, and many of the books in his observatory are sneaked from the island. The pins and glasses rocks had a red outline for a while, it disappears when Cherche start seeing it as ‘his pins’ and not ‘the island pins’
Why is the stargazer paper type?
Cherche realized they can’t get wishes from people anymore, since no one remembers him for long and the wish would disappear with their memories, plus his wishcraft alone wouldn’t be enought to visit the forgotten island again. They want to borrow the power of the stars themselves to keep learning more about home. They got obsessed with that and prioritized creative craft to reach his goal. In some rituals, he needs stardust, which he doesn’t have, so he makes do by sacrificing a piece of paper from his book that are written with stardust (picture loop and cherche shaking hands, one became a star after eating a star the other became paper type after absorbing papers).
It’s arguable how much of Cherche’s original body he still has after dying and coming back so many times.
Revival craft.
The more the stargazer dies the longer it takes for their body to put itself back together. First death can take a few hours of recovery, sixth may take death a whole month. Everyone’s care when he was sick by the pineapple did speed up the recovery process.
The chance of them receiving a critical attack increases after each death.
Odile and Siffrin mini arc
After Odile warms up to Siffrin, getting over her suspicions, she becomes overprotective and disrespect them a lot.
They have a big fight when she notices Siffrin skips sleeping again, assumes their health and memory deteriorating from his research, and tries to confiscate their star book to solve the issue. That's the last straw, Siffrinvents about being treated like a child and how he is keeping up with their travels now so she can’t keep using the quest as an excuse to treat him like this, just like as a medic, he can’t force her to quit smoking. Odile is very awkward and isn’t sure how to say sorry, she offers to quit smoking instead, missing the point. She takes too long trying to find the right words, Siffrin doesn’t take her silence well and uses the star language to make her have a headache so intense she is forced to drop the book, not wanting to talk to her.
Siffrin doesn’t quite remember the fight but he does remember his high distrust and resentment the next morning. Odile takes some time to reflect, they talk very tensely, and she allows Siffrin to battle with everyone. He can do what he wants as long as it doesn't involve harming a fellow party member. Soon after Siffrin remembers her name.
Why does the stargazer call Boniface by their nickname?
The stargazer have an ‘I only use your full name’ policy to not forget people’s names, but they call Boniface, Bonnie. That’s because when Siffrin misremembered their name and started calling him ‘Bonnie’ the kid was delighted and gave him the name ‘Frin’, they thought it means they got closer, so when Siffrin noticed their name is Boniface and tried to call them that again, Bonnie was audibly upset.
They had a small argument and Siffrin decided to remember the name Bonnie likes more. Boniface isn’t important if they want to be Bonnie.
The sus quest, or lack of:
Siffrin can get suspicious of Odile being in a timeloop but is not very comun. She need to trigger a lot of things for them to confront her about it
Isabeau doesn't think she is in a timeloop but it is very easy for him to notice something is off. He is a coward tho so if she shut down any attempt of talking, he shut up. There is never any comfrontation.
This is all I had planned, I will no longer answer questions about the au.
Now, please be kind. I will turn off reblogs if people start being disrespectful.
Hey ISAT fandom, if there was, say, a fic project that involved the party traveling to different universes as part of a quest, and those different universes were the AUs belonging to actual folks in the fandom, would people be interested in collaborating with their AUs on that? Asking for a friend 👀
