It took me a long time to get over the fact that I was no longer part of the surgical unit. After 5 months spent in operating theatres and surgical wards I grew strongly attatched to my work environment and fellow colleagues.  My Sp and RMO are among those I’m gonna miss the most. They’ve both been incredibly nice to me ever since I’ve been tagged as their lucky mascot.

Moving on to my next posting, I’m slowly coming to terms with the diagnosis and management of common conditions like diabetes and hypertension.  It’s not as straightforward as surgical where you can do away with the pathology simply by excising the part(s) involved. Wonder if the OT enthusiast in me will ever grasp the subtleties of non operating units. I give myself another 5 months to answer that and let you know whether I have a change of heart or not.

After volunteering to be on call on consecutive weekends I finally had the next couple of sundays to bake and relax. These chocolate topped mocha brownies were just the thing for the bag of walnuts I bought a while ago. I doubled the amount of nuts instead of adding regular chocolate chips to fool myself into believing that I made a ‘healthier’ version. Adapted from Coffee Morning Cakes.

MOCHACCINO BROWNIES

Ingredients:

100g unsalted butter

100g dark chocolate

2 tbs strong black coffee

100g golden caster sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3 eggs, room temperature

85g all purpose flour

50g dark chocolate chips

50g toasted walnuts

100g white chocolate

Method:

  • Preheat oven to 350 oF. Grease & line a 9×9-inch baking tin.
  • Place butter, chocolate and coffee in a medium saucepan. Over low heat, stir until just melted. Cool slightly.

  • Whisk in sugar, cinnamon and eggs until well combined.
  • Sift over flour and fold in carefully. Lastly stir chocolate chips and coarsely chopped walnuts into batter.

  • Pour into prepared tin and bake for 30-35 minutes.
  • Leave to cool in tin before turning out. Cut into bars.
  • Melt white chocolate and drizzle over bars.