Hmmm…maybe brownies?

That's a lot of flour, so no to a topping. Something baked?

Some sort of butter cookie?

I think it’s a joke. I mean, can you imagine a recipe seriously calling for the precision of 52 point five grams of water, then a cup measure of flour, about the most imprecise ingredient to measure by volume? And a scant 1/6 cup of sugar, and some other odd measurements.

But if I suspend disbelief for a moment, the lack of leavener and the fact that it’s plllog asking, leaves me thinking it is some sort of chocolate matzo. Or maybe some other sort of crisp cracker. Proportions sound about right for that, to me.

None so far have guessed it, but, FOAS, you now have an insight into my mind! So, did you notice the thirds? I also did a huh? when I saw the 52.5, and a what the heck, but did eventually remember and found the list copied into my recipes. This is the calculations for 2/3 of the original recipe. I think I weighed the water measured by cups and then calculated 2/3 of that, which is where the decimal comes in. I'm sure when I made it that I just went for 52g but a drop past the point where it would waver between 51 and 52 on the display. FWIW, matzah, by definition, is just flour (made from wheat of the last harvest that has been guarded in a dry warm place to keep the natural wild yeasts on it from blooming) and water.

some kind of chocolate pastry or a cookie?

Metric recipes would have solids by weight and liquids by volume (in ml). Not the other way around. Sounds like a sweet chocolate pie crust. Or what Colleen and I would call pastry.

Tangent Alert:

“FWIW, matzah, by definition, is just flour (made from wheat of the last harvest that has been guarded in a dry warm place to keep the natural wild yeasts on it from blooming) and water.”

Ha, as bad luck would have it, when this gentile googled “matzo recipe” I stumbled upon the following page:

https://cosmopolitancornbread.com/simple-soft-unleavened-bread/

Without noticing the url or reading the narrative, I jumped right down to the recipe and saw that butter plus water added up to about half the flour amount, by volume. Not too far off from yours.

What I skipped right over was that this was for a SOFT unleavened bread!

The author makes the following argument, which is interesting to me as someone with no knowledge of this sort of thing:

”Now before I get into the recipe, I do want to mention that there are many “rabbinical laws” about what is and is not kosher. I am not an orthodox Jew, I do not keep rabbinical law. So this recipe wouldn’t be considered “kosher” under those rules.

However, the Bible does not specify what flour to use, what ingredients must (or must not) be in it, with the one exception being: leaven. It also doesn’t say how quickly the bread has to be made (under 18 minutes according rabbinical “laws.”)

Biblically speaking, leaven would have been sourdough starter or wild yeast.

Today, unleavened bread is made without yeast, but also without our modern leavening ingredients of baking soda or baking powder.

So is this kosher?

Rabbinically – no…Biblically – yes!“

That's just goofy. Anything can be unleavened bread. Many cultures make all kinds of unleavened breads. My favorite is dal paratha (the only way I really like lentils). The big commercial makers of matzah produce not kosher for Passover unleavened breads which are kosher to be eaten by Orthodox Jews and called "matzah not kosher for Passover". They're made with regular grain rather than kept free from yeast growth, and for year round eating by those who shouldn't have regular bread (or who just like it). Even during the Passover restrictions, there are ones which don't count as matzah (some groups require the consumption of three sheets of matzah per day during the holiday, so it matters beyond the seder rituals). These include "gluten free matzah like squares" (I kid you not--that's what it says on the box), egg "matzah", and various flavored ones, though those often aren't kosher for Passover, and you have to read the box. There are rabbinic dispensations for people with certain difficulties to eat these in lieu of matzah--they're not really matzah, though the word is on the box, it'll say so in the small print, but it allows those afflicted to feel part of the proceedings. Real matzah doesn't actually have gluten--that's the point! But some people are allergic to the two compounds which develop into it, so it's easier to just say GF. Egg "matzah" is easier for the elderly to eat and digest. But what the recipe you found is, is flatbread, not matzah.

Lots of people/cultures make flatbread. Some have yeasts added. Many Jews bake with potato starch and tapioca/cassava starch/flour for Passover because they are specifically not biblical, and the theory is that if they didn't have it in biblical times-- and places--and it's not mentioned in the scriptures, and it's not "small" things, substituting for wheat or barley, like rice, that it's okay to eat during Passover. Many rabbis have okayed quinoa because it's seeds rather than grains, but it is small things, so I don't get it. OTOH, my Eastern family's tradition is that the rice could never be mistaken for wheat so it's okay to use as is, as a starch vegetable, but not to use as flour, and they'd probably say the same thing about potato starch (and quinoa).

As to this "matzah" recipe, the maker needs to reread the texts. The "bread of affliction" was set to rise, so was a gluten bearing grain with wild yeast (which was and is on the grain, and in the flour), which was grabbed up and carried wrapped on the people's backs. In order to duplicate this, one must start with rise-able grain and the presence of wild yeast, and prevent it from rising. If she'd started with bread dough, put it in a linen sack on her back and gone for a long hike in the sun, I'd be more convinced. I find the "how to make unleavened bread for Passover" offensive. It's arrogant. I have no issue with her religion or her bread, but with her disclaimers. If she named it by her religion, which she names elsewhere, or named it "non-Jewish", or any other thing, I wouldn't be offended, but it reads like she's giving the info in the part people don't read, and promulgating her recipe to pursuade people who aren't well informed.

Tangent aside, Floral, here we weigh the water. Both in metric recipes and just in general. Most of the modern fluid measuing cups ("jugs") have both scales, but my guess is that this started before most people had metric volume measures. Even so, I've seen people weighing grams of water in non-cooking situations where I thought mililiters would have been easier. We weigh the water. Our digital scales often even have an option to measure weight in ml (i.e., fluid measure). Mine does, though I don't use it, having metrics on my measuring cups, and given that many American recipes use grams to measure water. They just do. I put my measuring cup on the scale, and pour in the water :) I know it bugs you, but it is what it is.

Sorry plllog, I wouldn’t have posted that had I realized it could be controvertial or offensive. I also hadn’t dug into the site to note her religion/beliefs.

Oh, no problem, FOAS! It's not that offensive! Enough for me to spew my unfiltered opinion of it, but really it's her attitude that gets me. I have no issue with her practices and beliefs, and there are disclaimers in various spots, though she should have said, "I'm not a Rabbinic Jew" rather than "orthodox", but likely she doesn't know enough to know that. It's that someone like you wandering by will be misled by the way she presents it that bothers me. But it was interesting.

Chocolate playdoh

LOL! The butter makes that a bad idea, but I love the concept. :)

Leave out tye butter and it starts to sound like chocolate piñata!

@foodonastump, here is a real recipe for homemade matzah. I didn't know you could buy real matzah flour! There are special places, I've just read, where you can buy properly guarded flour.

https://pjlibrary.org/beyond-books/pjblog/march-2022/diy-kosher-matzah

(Misconception written here removed for clarity)

From Orthodox Union, the kosher authority in the USA accepted by all:

https://oukosher.org/passover/articles/matzah-101/

"All wheat flour used in matzah production must be continually supervised. While kosher supervision of Passover flour used in “regular” matzah begins prior to its milling, the flour used in “shmurah” (watched) matzah is supervised from the time that the wheat is harvested in the field. Wheat can only be used to make matzah flour if it has been inspected against any signs of moisture. The flour mill, bins, and transport vessels must be koshered for Passover; and any equipment used for chametz-milling that cannot be adequately cleaned must be effectively sequestered." The machine made matzah (in the boxes) is made this way, rather than guarded from the time of reaping.

So a modern alternative to ordering guarded flour is to inspect your wheatberries as described futher on the OU page, and use a new, or reserved just for Passover, home grain mill, to make your flour.

I often weigh water because it’s easy for metric recipes and more accurate.

“Our digital scales often even have an option to measure weight in ml (i.e., fluid measure)”

Which does absolutely nothing in metric other than to change the display between saying g and saying ml. Kinda silly. At least in US it converts anything 16oz and over to pounds plus ounces. (eg 18 ounces to 1 pound 2 ounces.) I’ve always been amused at the big deal they make over this ”conversion”, esp since it obv only works for something with the same specific gravity as water.

Chocolate graham cracker...?

@ nicole - pillog already clarified it's for chocolate piecrust.

And I didn't realize this was your own recipe, pillog, until you mentioned that later 😀

@carolb_w_fl_coastal_9/10

Oh, no, it's not my own recipe---I'm sorry. ! can see how it read that way. I meant my recipe as in the one I use. I've started inventing pie fillings, but so far I keep to the recipes for the crusts. I've tried little tweaks like adding the spoon of vodka or vinegar and it doesn't change things for me. I've settled on three go-to recipes, whole wheat, white and chocolate white-flour, which all came from bloggers, are mixed in the FP and roll out really thin. The FP is a game changer for me, I have retired my pastry blender. I really didn't like making pies before the white flour bloggist, whose simple and just right recipe, along with Grainlady's rolling advice, changed my world, pie-wise.

The chocolate recipe from a blog's pie had really tall ruffles, which is why it was too big. Since the original was 1.5c flour, it seemed simple enough to do 2/3, with the tricks like doing the water by weight. I don't care. It comes out great. It makes a nice crust. Chocolaty (I use Valrhona cocoa powder which is very rich and deeply flavored) but isn't cookie-ish. I use it on my pumpkin chunk mini-chip pie and did on last year's chocolate chocolate chocolate Thanksgiving pie with the chocolate turkey in the middle.

FOAS, I have found emprically that lots of liquids have a very similar specific gravity (if not the same) as water has.

I’m late, I know. But I looked at the ingredients and thought about them — the butter, flour with just a bit of water — and recognized that it was pie dough, scaled down, perhaps for a small custard tart.