converting pure chocolate to "bittersweet" chocolate A chocolate cookie recipe I'm looking at calls for melting down a cup of bittersweet chocolate chips. However, I happen to have a brick of completely unsweetened cooking chocolate in the fridge. Can I convert that to "bittersweet" by simply melting it down and adding stuff (sugar, butter?) to it? If so, what should I add, and in what ratios, relative to the amount of unsweetened chocolate?

Thanks,
-- Matt
Can you melt unsweetened chocolate, add sugar, and have bittersweet chocolate? No. The resulting chocolate might taste fine, but it would be gritty from the sugar. To get an idea of what is involved in sweetening chocolate, check out this page about making chocolate from cocoa beans: http://www.chocolatealchemy.com/conchingrefining.php

Of course, since you're using it in backing, the simple solution is just to increase the sugar in the recipe. Instead of adding the sugar to the chocolate, just add it to the cookies.