There is something about lemon

There are summer desserts (the ones with berries) and there are winter desserts (lots of chocolate and alcohol mixed in with spices). Also in between are the fall desserts (everything pumpkin). In India, fruits and vegetables aren't as seasonal in nature as in the West. But still, I understand the lure of the sweet tartness provided by berries in summer and the warmth of spices in winter.

If there is one type of dessert I refuse to sort is anything made of Lemon. It provides the required freshness and tartness desired in summers and also to me provides the comfort of tang in the winters. I see myself tucked into a quilt digging into a warm lemon pudding. It reminds of the summer to come.

Which is why I think I baked this lemon pudding cake twice, once in April for the boy who was moving to start a new job in a different city, and once again in Feb, just because.

Look at that above picture. Don't you want to grab a spoon, gather around the cake tin and just dig your way through it? Which is exactly what the boy did (single-handedly) in April, and what my roommates and I did recently.

This is kind of cake you would bond over, fall in love over.

This is also the kind of cake that will stand out in a fancy dinner party, just bake it in individual ramekins.

Go on, head over here for the recipe.

A Pinch of This, A Handful of That - A Book Review

There is something about a recipe book, isn't there? The joy of leafing through the pictures, checking to see if you have all the ingredients, the frustration of not having some, the anticipation before the final product. The whole whirl of emotion that one book can make you feel.

When the people at India Book Store asked me to host a book review, I was more than willing to oblige. Go on, read the review and also pop over to their blog, it is quite awesome.


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Engine which helps you find the best deals on books. We are book lovers ourselves; we define

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This is a book that lives up to its name. A Pinch of This, A Handful of That has recipes from here, there

and everywhere; some everyday, some exotic; some easy, some extremely complicated.

I don’t rightly know whether this book should be classified as a cookbook. That definition is both

restrictive and untrue. Because this book is much more than that. Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal is a food

blogger who is passionately interested in cooking, and this passion spills out in her stories. Every section

in the book begins with a food story. Moti Mummy ordering all the women of the household to make

a year’s worth of tomato ketchup because tomatoes are at their cheapest, Maharaj, her family’s cook

who makes the best Mohanthal, Rushina the enthusiastic new bride stocking her kitchen to feed twenty

instead of two, and later, as a young mother, taking a leaf out of Calvin’s (of Hobbes fame) mom’s book

by giving gory names to simple homemade fare – those are the stories that stay with you, long after

you’ve glanced through the recipes.

Taken strictly as a cookbook, I have mixed feelings about the book. The book contains such varied

recipes; Gujarati, Sindhi, Italian; vegetarian, non-vegetarian; desserts, snacks, main courses; that unless

you plan to randomly dip into the book and cook whatever turns up on the page (which may not be

very easy to do, considering that some of the dishes feature exotic ingredients that may not be readily

available in your neighbourhood supermarket) the book may leave you feeling a bit clueless. Neither

does it have a detailed table of contents. How am I to know, for instance, that the book contains a

recipe for Rainbow Chard Saute?

That being said, dipping into the book is a bit like putting your hand into Santa’s bag of goodies and

waiting with bated breath to see what you’ve landed. If, like me, you think you’ve exhausted your stock

of recipes and want to surprise your family or friends with something unexpected, this book is the cure.

The individual recipes are explained in a simple manner, and I tried a couple of things for myself, to

check them out (the Chhole and Nairobi Butter Tawa Prawns) and both tasted great. I feel inspired to try

some of the more exotic recipes; the Undhiyu, for example, and the above-mentioned Rainbow Chard

Saute!

I suspect the book is aimed at people who read Rushina’s blog. I think it could have been organized

better; into sections based on the type of cuisine, for example. On the other hand, as I said before, the

book might be the perfect antidote to kitchen boredom. Pick a page at random and try something new!

- written by Mugdha Wagle

Flaming Chocolate Whiskey Cake with a Meringue Icing

I have been living by myself for about eight months now (not including my stay on campus during my PG), I have never really felt lonely or missed my family all that much. Except when festivals come around.

When festivals come around, I feel this need to replicate the customs of home. Obviously in my case customs mean food, so I am usually on the phone with my mother jotting down recipes as I try to re-create home. Ganesh Chaturthi had me making modaks (kozhyakottai) and Diwali saw me make coconut and almond barfi. 

Chirstmas isn't celebrated at home, but is a festival I love, because it gives me an excuse to listen to carols and to bake a cake. This time though, I decided to be a bit gimmicky. We threw a big Christmas lunch (16 people is a big deal for 4 girls who are used to cooking for no more than 4-5 people), and went all out with the decorations, so obviously the cake had to be at par. 

Presenting the FLAMING CHOCOLATE WHISKEY CAKE WITH MERINGUE ICING. 

I used the New York Times recipe for the cake. I would suggest baking the cake a day earlier than when you need it, resting makes it incredibly moist and beautiful.

Browned tops of the meringue icing

 For the meringue I looked up a bunch of recipes on the net and just whipped up 8 egg whites till they formed soft peaks and added a cup of sugar, and beat it till the peaks were stiff. No cream of tartar, because I don't know where in India would I have gotten it. 

The cake on fire

The cake was set alight by a cup of brandy which I heated on the gas till it became unstable and caught fire by itself. Once it is burning just pour it on the golden meringue. 

It looks really fancy, but it is one of the easiest cakes I have made. Do give it a try!

Baked Eggs: For the lazy Sundays

There are some days when the thought of a breakfast is just too much. You are just out of bed and the thought of standing at the stove scrambling eggs or even whisking the eggs seems like a torture. You wish you were home, where your mother would have had breakfast hot and ready for you when you woke up. You mentally slap yourself for the thought, you are a strong and independent woman (man) who chose to live by yourself. So you trudge into the kitchen trying to wake yourself up enough, so you can think of something easy.

These baked eggs are so easy you can make them half asleep. Seriously, you can. All you need are some chopped veggies and some herbs.

Throw them all in, sprinkle salt and pepper on top, bake in the oven to how jiggly you want the eggs to be and Voila! You can also whisk the mixture a bit, it will look like a mini omelette.

Like them? Make them!

Baked eggs

easy peasy eggs for one lazy bum

Ingredients

• 1 egg (or how many every u like)
• chopped bell pepeprs
• chopped onions
• mixed herbs
• salt and pepper to taste
• butter to taste

Instructions

1. Mix in onions and bell peppers with butter and herbs and microwave (or saute) for a minute or two
2. Break egg into the bowl and add the veggies
3. Bake in an oven at 160 C till desired amount of jigglyness of egg

Yield: for 1 person
Prep Time: 00:03
Cook time: 00:05
Tags: eggs, breakfast, quick

Colour Blocked Cupcakes and a fresh start

I know have been kind of MIA on the blog. But post-graduate life does that to you. I have hardly been cooking much even when I go back home and P.S Cupcakes has kind of died out due to lack of time and unavailability of an oven on campus.

My Hakuna Matata tattoo and the neon cupcakes. 

But now in a month I will have my degree in my hand and will be pushed out into the real world, with a real job. And I am terrified! So terrified that when I went home this time, I sought refuge in the kitchen and in an old friend.

These cupcakes are Oscar approved

She wanted to bake multi-colour cupcakes and bake them we did. Being a fashion blogger she called them colour blocked cupcakes. And guess what? We had a bunch of them which had pastel colours and a bunch which had neons, so much for me keeping track of fashion trends huh?

Pretty cool huh?

There is very basic physics required to get these right. Place colours which have similar wavelength together. These colours won't mix together to form other weird browns or blacks. Bunch them according to the order they appear in a rainbow: VIBGYOR. Which is why I had Violet, Green and Blue together and Pink, Orange and Yellow together.

You can make rainbow cupcakes as well, but put very less amount of batter of every colour while filling them in. Also make sure you spread the batter evenly, you don't want random blobs of colour. Or, may be you do. I would.

 These cupcakes are lemon cupcakes which were filled with a lemon curd and had a lemon butter-cream frosting.

Don't be afraid to core cupcakes, just fill them with yumminess and put back the top.  It will get covered with icing. 

There can you make out that the cores were out? 

I used Martha Stewart's Lemon Meringue Cupcake recipe for the cakes. And David Leibovitz's recipe for the lemon curd. Feel free to use use Martha's but it just asked for more eggs. I made the butter-cream icing myself, the recipe for which will follow.

I am always going to paint my nails before I take food photos with my hands. I like how happy painted nails look. 

I am going to be posting pretty regularly now, so stay in touch. 

Aditi, writes a fashion blog, The Colour Whisperer. Do follow her.

All the pictures in the post have been taken by her.

Lemon Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients

• 100 gm butter
• 200 gm icing sugar
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1 tbsp lemon/lime juice

Instructions

1. Beat butter till light.
2. Add sugar in batches and keep beating till the volume increases and the sugar is well incorporated.
3. Add milk and lemon juice.
4. Add more milk to thin out the icing, if you want it to spread easily.
5. To firm up the icing, add more icing sugar. You can now pipe it out.

Yield: Enough to lightly frost 24 cupcakes
Prep Time: 00:10
Tags: lemon, icing, butter-cream

Delhi

My college has a compulsory rural research project component in it, which in the words of a MICAn means HOLIDAY! So the destinations mostly are Mcleodganj, Goa, Konkan and Kasol. We do manage to get a few days off to visit an actual village and get some data out by interviewing people or by imagining that we interviewed people.

If you know me, then you would know that any excuse to travel is just an excuse to eat. I very conveniently took off to Delhi 5 days before I was meant to get there, so I could catch up with my best friend and eat my way around the city.

I visited Chandni Chowk, Paranthewale Galli, Karims, Hauz Khas Village and Big Chill.

The dahi chaat at Chandni Chowk was very different from what we get at Bombay. It had papdi and dahi vada in it.

The chaat wala who sold sooji ka pooris

Dahi chaat!

I have wanted to visit Paranthewale Galli since a college senior blogged about it, along with a picture of a brilliant Rabdi Parantha. The paranthas here are fried, rather than being toasted. I strongly recommend the Rabdi Parantha. 

From top: Mirchi parantha, Rabdi Parantha and Khurchan Parantha

Another place to visit, while in Chandni Chowk is Karim's. Go there for the kebabs and the amazingly soft and buttery naan. The best naan I have ever had. 

 Every one in Delhi will definitely ask you to visit Hauz Khas village. Do go there, there is a great ruin and a lake and a beautiful garden there. There are also a lot of these kitschy shops and boutiques and tiny but expensive cafés all around. Jayesh and I went to one such.

Café Zo, serves Mediterranean food. It also is overtly done up and the owners in a bid to make the place all mediterranean-y have put in textures on everything, so it is an eye sore, at least in daylight.

The food wasn't all that great either.

Lunch at Cafe Zo: Panko encrusted stuffed mushrooms, Greek Salad, Chicken Tajine with Couscous and Pizza with grilled chicken and caramelized onions. 

Another place which people insist you visit is Big Chill. It is full of these old movie posters and is known for its milkshakes. The servings are huge so DO NOT over order like we did. Not that you will regret it, the food is great.

Clockwise from top left: baked potato with cheddar and mushrooms, baked mushroom, cheddar and penne; fusilli with tomatoes, basil and olives; chicken lasagna and chocolate decadence. 

 Delhi has lots of awesome places to eat at. Go with a friend who knows the place and will take you to all the ruins and tell you about the architecture. Delhi is beautiful and full of stories. Your history text come alive.

P.S Cupcakes

Most Postgraduate colleges in India are situated in far off towns, or if they are close to a town, then auto rates are astronomical. All this leads to one thing: extremely hungry and starved for decent food MICAns. 

Pooja and I, thought of baking and selling cupcakes and cakes on campus. We sourced ingredients locally, bought chocolates from Bombay and brought all our baking goods from home. 

We call ourselves "P.S Cupcakes". From freshers' party gifts to birthday cakes and cakes just for the heck of it, we have covered it all, in a month. 

We baked these boob shaped cakes for a friend's birthday. 

This is the chocolate mud cake covered with ganache for another friend's birthday.

The brownie batter, before it went into the oven.

I leave you with my (our) new favourite recpe for chocolate cake, it is dense moist and a crowd pleaser.

Mississippi Mud Cake

Ingredients

• 125 gm dark cooking chocolate
• 100 gm butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup hot water
• 1/4 cup bourbon
• 3/4 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup self raising flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. In a large heatproof bowl, combine chocolate, butter, water and bourbon
3. Heat over boiling water, until the mixture is smooth
4. Allow to cool slightly, and add the flour and cocoa mixture
5. Mix in the eggs
6. Pour into a greased cake tin and bake for 30-40 minutes or until firm to touch.
7. Use a chocolate ganache on top.

Yield: 500 gm cake
Prep Time: 00:15
Cook time: 00:40
Tags: chocolate, mud cake, egg

A photoshoot for the cupcake business.

So, I had posted about starting a small home-run cupcake business, right? So before that I created a Facebook page for it. Social media is a brilliant thing, trust me (plus I had to use my newly acquired digital media skills from my internship). So the page was well received and was shared by many and Tina (Piu), who is a senior from college, aka Sharan's friend, offered to do a photoshoot to promote the business. I agreed, obviously.

She and another friend, Vini came over on Sunday to watch and photograph me while I baked. They made me move out of my kitchen (!) to my bedroom (!!). The study table was brought before the window and all the ingredients were brought there.

I baked a chocolate cupcake with a peanut butter soft center and also mini-cupcakes with a vanilla icing. You will find the recipe for my cupcakes below, feel free to use your own frosting, but I frosting recipe is coming soon.

You can head over to Tina's blog for the pictures, here is also the Facebook album.

She also sent over a few pictures, so these are a few of my favourites:

I have always envied food bloggers who would have photos like this. So cool and all. Now, I have my own! 

Notice the nails?

A friend pointed out that this looks like I am talking to my cupcakes. Though no true at this moment, I do that quite often. 

I made coloured sugar! So easy and so pretty!

You can contact Tina anytime on her Facebook page. You should check out her wedding photography. Amazing!

What do you think of the pictures?

Devil's Food Cake cupcakes

By Sanjeev Kapoor

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp soda bicarb
• 60 grams butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 eggs
• 60 grams cooking chocolate
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line your cupcake trays
2. Sift all the dry ingredients together
3. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beat till incorporated.
4. Melt chocolate in 1/2 a cup of boiling water and cool. Then mix into the egg mixture
5. Fold in the dry ingredients. Add the milk, lemon juice and vanilla essence, till all well blended.
6. Fill cupcake trays till 2/3rd full and bake for 20 mins, or till it passes the knife test.

Yield: 12 big cupcakes and 6-8 small ones

Prep Time: 00:10
Cook time: 00:20
Tags: chocolate, cupcakes, egg

Pancakes

Bombay is expensive. We all know that. But you start noticing how high the prices are only when you live in another city.

In Ahmedabad, students like me can actually think about going to a 5 star for a buffet. And we do, regularly. To the Courtyard Marriott. The breakfast buffet there costs Rs. 450 and they also have a 25% discount for students from select institutes.

So the all you can eat features fresh fruits, salads, 3-4 kinds of cheese, croissants, muffins, breads, any egg preparation, Indian breakfast, some chinese-y things, a huge range of fruit preserves, a range of muesli and chocos and fruit juices, waffles and pancakes.

Their pancakes are great, I love having them with a generous dollop of butter and trying them out with all the preserves and jams.

So, this post is really about pancakes. We have all tried to make them at home for breakfast and for dinner.

I like mine buttery and slightly salty. This recipe is just that. The outsides are so crispy and nice and the insides soft. It takes a while to cook. But follow the directions and it will be heaven.

A cupcake shop!

I know a lot of people who love food, they are the best kind, and most of them want to have a restaurant of their own sometime in the future. 

Future.. when? After we are all done paying our student loans (me), having slaved for the corporate overlord and or having satisfied your parent's expectation of having a nice, well-paying and settled life. Everybody needs some capital to start a restaurant business, and according to Mr. Bourdain 95% of them tank. 

Honestly, I can't wait that long, or even to see whether it will succeed or not. So, I have decided to open a cupcake store from home, only for a month.

Why? Because Navi Mumbai needs cupcakes. There isn't a single cupcake store here. 

All that said and done now, please head over to my facebook page to know about the menu and to know how you can order. 

Feta Love, Cupcakes and Hairbands!

Who has a new obsession?

Me! Yes. Me! (JD reference).

Obsession #1: Feta
Have you ever eaten something that just exploded in your mouth, smooth and flavourful?
It happened with me and Feta at the Kala Ghoda Café. I ordered a salad with feta in it. And since then greek salad is the only kind I have ordered. I have even saved it up after finishing the salad to add to my pizzas.

So when J and I went to Yellow Tree Café, which is the sunshine-iest of places I have been to, I had to order it. And it didn't disappoint me. Though I would have liked my salad with cherry tomatoes and not big chunks of tomatoes.

The cafe has big windows and happy yellow walls with happy coloured stuff on it

The lovely salad with the out of place large tomatoes

We also ordered sun-dried tomato pesto chicken sandwich and cilantro chicken sandwiches that came with curly fries. The sandwiches come with a garlicky tomato sauce and mustard sauce. Both these sauces complimented the sandwiches really well. Just added that extra bit of zing.

The sundried tomato pesto chicken

The curly fries look more dominating than the cilantro chicken sandwich, no?

The yum sauces

We then went to find Lulu's cupcakes. If you subscribe to BPB (if you don't you should) then you would know who she is. She turned out to be close by at an exhibition and we got to have her chocolate cupcake and red velvet cupcake. The chocolate was soft and the frosting smooth and rich. The red velvet has an amazing cream cheese frosting.

Lulu's cupcakes

Obsession #2: Hairbands
At the exhibition the first stall I encountered was selling hairbands. I couldn't stop myself and was bought two of them. One very classy and the other bright. This obsession, according to some of my friends marks my transition from a tomboy to a girl. I don't know about that, but I do plan on adding to my tiny collection.

Tell me about your recent obsessions!

Starry Starry Cupcakes!

So what do you do when a friend invites you over for a nice Kashmiri lunch with 13 other starving PG kids interning in Mumbai?
You gang up with another one of the invitees and spend a fun afternoon baking and frosting cupcakes.

What recipe did we use? This one. We just subbed the chocolate chips with grated dark chocolate. Also made vanilla ones subbing the cocoa for more flour.

Pictures? Here: 

The starry sparkles

Green Being mixed in

Pink colour being mixed in 

Yellow being mixed in

We had lots of fun with the starry sprinklers

This is my friend Pooja, icing the cupcakes. She is unbelievably thin for someone who loves food so much and eats as much too! 

Pizza by the bay

So, J and I wanted to have the traditional Bombay dinner at Pizzeria sitting by tables overlooking Marine Drive. Our timing though was horrible. This section is now shut for renovation. We decided to go ahead and sit inside what was formerly Jazz by the Bay, but has now been renamed (repositioned?) as Pizza by the Bay.

I haven't been there before, so I can't write a before after piece. The interiors were white and blue and the place had a distinct corporate air. Such places tend to scare me, but with the thought of pizzas we moved on. We found a table for two.

A not here about the tables which seat two, they are rectangular and not square one would be used to and the length is longer than the breadth. So J and I had to sit at the far ends. After a few minutes he got up and moved closer to me (we were sitting on adjacent sides now). The staff promptly moved his plate and cutlery. (+1 to the service)

The menu according to BPB (Brown Paper Bag, no? Go to their website now!) hasn't changed much. I was ultra excited to see the Pizza Pot Pie section. Fellow TLC viewers would have seen the segment in Best Food Ever where they cover a Chicago joint which offers the best Pot Pies. Having seen the episode often, I have dreamt of having the pie.

But before I get to the mains I'll get to the starters. In true J and S fashion, we ordered Garlicky Potatoes (so I forgot what it was called but it is the usual spicy garlic potatoes.)

The serving was more than this, ok? We ate some before J reminded me about pictures. So they were chunky wedges which actually had grated garlic in the batter. It was yum and garlicky but I had to add a little salt on mine. The mayo alongside was nice according to J. The tomatoes with herbed perfectly and weren't limp. 

We next had the rissoto with parmesan, eggplant and zucchini. It was one of the first rissotos I had had which wasn't overtly drowning in sauce. The parmesan flavour was strong. I loved it. The zucchini and eggplant well done. It was so yum. Sigh!

Now the Pizza Pot Pie. It was served in the same manner as TLC (yay!). Excitement mounted. As we tried to cut a chunk we found a watery mess running out. We soldiered on. But well.. it was quite disappointing. It was called Great Balls of Fire.It wasn't spicy and the balls (chicken meatballs) weren't properly cooked. I think the watery mess was due to baking it with the tomatoes. I wonder why they had to add them if they already had tomato pesto in it. Anyhow it was a big disappointment. 

The food overall was great. The service better. I hope all the pot pies aren't like the one I had.