Philosophy of Smiles - Food for thought

It was like any other dusk when I just took out a pack of ready to fry snack “Potato Smiles” to accompany my cup of hot tea. I heated the oil and slide couple of Smiles in hot oil. Round, plump and frosty Smiles with a big smile on its face.A minute before they were shivering in cold. Now swimming happily after they have dived in hot oil. The splutter drew my attention to them again. The comforting frost was dying away in the heat and leaving Smiles all exposed in an unknown territory.  Everything around has changed but one thing, the happy big smile on their faces.

This get me thinking about life. Our life is also a collection of such tiny journeys, like freezer to hot oil and finally on to plate. We keep running into times when our comfort zone is challenged to enter in a unknown testing territory. Always these testing times are for a period and of course how we have dealt with them becomes foundation of something else in life.

But what is most important is how we have been in that time? Do we have the courage and endurance of Smiles. Can we keep smiling even when nothing seems right?

Most of the times the answer is “NO”.

Sipping my cup of tea, I kept hovering in the philosophy of Smiles. Philosophy of keep smiling.







Courtesy - Mccan Smiles Image

  

Vidyarthi Bhavan





Image Courtsy - Google Image







Change is the only constant thing in life.

Very well said but there are people like me who wants lot of things to remain the way they have been. Old world charm is something, I am really drawn towards. For me the stillness, tranquility and tidiness of old times are very alluring.  I feel the same charm and old world aura whenever I visit Vidyarthi Bhavan.

Vidyarthi Bhavan is a vegetarian south Indian eatery founded in 1943, right in the middle of hustle bustle of Gandhi bazaar in Bangalore.

The entrance itself hints about its heritage. The place is a moderate hall, lined up with basic tables and benches. There is this profound rule that if there is an empty seat, it will be used. You get this experience of eating with a complete stranger on the same table and sometimes running into someone interesting.  So it’s like a cozy community canteen. The hall is lashed with photographs and sketches of eminent visitors of this café who happens to be top politicians, writer, artists and actors. It gives me goose bumps by thinking that  these people has been here and have eaten the way we are going to eat.

The food is quite essentially banglorian snacks – dosa, ideli, Poodi sagu, Vada etc and finish it off with delicious filter coffee. Dosas  are super  crispy and ideli’s are so soft. Everything on the menu is mouth-watering tasty and very economically priced.

This place is able to take you to that old earthy wonderful world. That’s the reason I wish that Vidyarthi Bhavan is one of the few things which should be spared from Change.

Visit this place and you would know what I mean.

Magical Giggales

There are many special dates in our lives. Birthdays and anniversaries top the list as they come around every year. Then there are dates like when we joined our first job, when we met  " The special one”, when we brought our first car and things like that. Sometimes I really get amazed that whenever we think of these special days our heart gets filled with the same feelings as we must have experience long back. One of such days for me is when my daughter was born. It felt like magic, I could not believe that little rosy bundle of joy is my own. Touch wood!!

The time has flown by and now it was her 1st birthday and I have baked everyone’s favorite dark chocolate eggless cake for our midnight celebration (Yes now days kids don’t sleep that early). Blowing magic candles making her giggle like ringing bells and its all feels magical all over again.

It’s a simple gooey eggless cake with chocolate mousse icing.

Chocolate Mousse:

Semisweet chocolate – 150 gm

Butter – 2 tablespoons

Cold Heavy whipping cream – 1 cup

Pure vanilla extract – ½ teasp

•  Take semi sweet chocolate and butter in heat proof bowl.
• Put this bowl on top of simmering water saucepan. Basically we are melting the chocolate by double boiler technique. Make sure that water is not touching to the bottom of the top bowl. Melt the chocolate completely and stir continuously. You can do it in the microwave as well; just keep chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl and warm for 2 minutes. Remove it from double boiler/Micro wave and let it cool completely for about 15-20 minutes.
•  Meanwhile whip the cream in a bowl by using hand mixer or by hand with wire whisk, until go get soft peaks. When you pull the whisk out of cream a peak of cream will be form and it will remain there until you shake the bowl gently. At the soft peak stage cream feel firm yet soft and light like foam.
• Add vanilla extract and gently whip one more time. Don't over whip now.
• If melted chocolate mixture is cooled completely, add third of whipped cream to it
•  Fold the cream in gently by moving your spatula round and then cut that round in half. (We do not want to deflate the whipped cream.)
• Then add another third of cream and fold. Then add remaining whipped cream and fold gently. It will be very airy in texture.

Keep this in the refrigerator. Now move on to the cake. It’s a simple vegetarian cake with good taste and great texture.

Eggless Chocolate Cake

2 cups   refined flour

1 tsp   Baking powder

¾ tbsp   Soda bi-carb

1 cup   Thik curd

A few drops Vanilla essence

1 cup   Milk

¾ cup   White butter

¾ cup   Caster sugar

6 tbsp   Cocoa powder

• Make sure all the ingredient is at room temperature. This makes a lot of difference in baking.
• Preheat oven to 180*C. Grease a cake tin and dust with flour and remove excess flour.You can also line it with butter paper instead of dusting flour.
• Sift flour, baking powder, soda bicarb and cocoa powder together. Heat the milk till it is lukewarm.
•   Whisk the curd, caster sugar, butter and vanilla essence together till smooth and frothy.
• Fold in the flour mixture alternating with milk. Mix quickly but gently to a smooth batter.
• Pour into well-greased cake moulds and bake on the centre rack for 8 minutes.
• Check the cake, remove cake from the oven and after a few seconds, Demold it.

When the cake is completely cooled off, spread the mousse icing on top of the cake. Take generous amount of the icing and spread evenly from top to the sides. Try to spread in one stroke till edges to get a smoothly finished icing on the top. Though you can have fun as you want, try making small swirls and spike by a flat knife. As my cake was birthday cake, I kept it smoothly finished and filled up some mousse in the piping bag (I made at home from butter paper) and made some twisty borders at the edge. Melted some dark chocolate and filled it in another piping bag to write on the cake.

Chocolate mousse cake icing  does wonders to this simple cake. Its not just add the rich creamy lux to the cake but  also accentuate the chocolaty flavor. You can add a spoon of coffee with chocolate while melting the chocolate for making mousse. Grownups will love it even more. ..

                                        Happy Baking!!



For the love….

Baking has always enticed me, though I was a declared bad cook (by everyone who has got to try my culinary outputs). Thanks to my husband, his encouragements and his VERY good luck that I got much better since I started to cook for him ;). With this newly acquired “Ratatouille Magic”, I went back to my eternal calling of Baking.

What really excites me about baking is the drama and suspense around it. With few ingredients, you  first achieve this silky smooth harmless looking  batter which could turn you upside down with its performance after it has been out of the oven. It can reward you by giving you glodenish brown smile or can just sit flat and see you beating your head or maybe it can even ditch you by rising like a star when in the oven and then sink with your hopes when come out.  This winning and losing is so exciting that I am not ready to give up.

I have tried many recipes from the cook books and posts on internet but the issue I have faced is either you don’t get those ingredients or their specifications are not the same. Above all the oven instructions are difficult to follow as most of us don’t use very sophisticated baking equipments. So I have been testing and trying few recipes to adopt then for a basic home baker. Here I will share the recipes which has been easy to make, ingredients readily available and very successful ;)

Keep an eye for the next post….

Have a great day!!!

The Story of many stories

Welcome to my world of anecdotes. I have been a story teller ever since my existence. I like to talk and share the experiences, memories and incidences which get turn into stories as I don’t know how to cut it short.  What I like to talk about……. everything which has made me laugh, giggle, happy and excited.

Join my journey of tales about travel, food, fun and above all love of baking.

Rightly said by Julia child -

“A party without cake is really just a meeting”