Baker's Corner: Fudgy Chocolate Cake

The introduction to this post is going to be (kinda) short and sweet 😊 The National Day long weekend is on the horizon and I have a bunch of plans that I want to execute and blogging does not happen to be one of them.

It was my FILs birthday last week. We went shopping on Orchard road and then enjoyed a lovely family meal at Tandoor located within Holiday Inn. I still wanted to bake him a cake because age notwithstanding, who doesn't like having cake baked especially for them right? 😜

I asked the twins what cake I should bake for their beloved ajja (grandfather) and pat came the reply “Chocolate and Raspberry Cake”. Chocolate is the little ones favourite flavour (ties for first place with strawberry) and raspberries are one among their favourite fruit so I wasn't the least bit surprised.

I was looking for a cake recipe that was simple, had easily available ingredients and that would result in a really moist cake. This recipe checks all the boxes and how. This is an oil-based cake so how you go about it is you mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, whisk the wet ingredients together in another medium bowl, mix the wet ingredients into the dry and BAM! Cake batter done. No sieving of dry ingredients, creaming of sugar and butter or any of that fiddly stuff.

The cake turned out moist, fudgy and chocolatey. The addition of a little brewed coffee enhanced the chocolate favour. The only gripe I had with the finished product was that the cake was a tad too sweet for my liking (the others thought it was just right though) so I fine-tuned the recipe and it should be perfect now. Since this is a blended cake, the sugar is not required to build volume so it can be reduced with no significant change in outcome of the texture. Follow the recipe below and you should be fine. I suggest you take a look at the notes section at the bottom of the recipe before starting for some tips, tricks and suggestions so you will be guaranteed to get a good outcome for this cake.

 That's it folks. Make this cake the next time you have a loved one's birthday or for a special occasion and you will be glad you did.

Update: I have made this cake innumerable times since this post and it works perfectly for me every time. I have tweaked the recipe quantity to make 12 cupcakes and a smaller 6-inch cake. Please refer to notes at the bottom for more details. 

Happy birthday Daddy (to my husband), mava (to me) and ajja (to the kids). We love you loads 💗

Recipe of the month: Maggi Pakoda

You know what I do when I have my mom or MIL around? I usually bug them to pull out one of their  much-loved signature recipes from their personal recipe repertoire and make it just so I can document it on my blog 😁 A sure-fire way of getting a winning post with minimum effort from my end. I believe I am not a true daughter if I don't make full use of these two women in such an obviously shameless manner 😂

I have several of my mom's and MIL's recipes on the blog. Today I'll talk about my MILs recipes since she is the contributor to this particular blog post. 

My MIL is a very intuitive and resourceful cook - one that can judge what ingredients go together well and can give ordinary leftovers a makeover to transform them into something unexpectedly delicious. Check out the recipes for Bread Pakoda, Vegetable Cutlet, Vegetable Samosa, Vegetable Pulao, Rice Shavige, Chitranna Shavige that are all her contributions to my blog. From her to me and subsequently my children, these treasured recipes will be a part of our family legacy and that brings me a profound sense of satisfaction 😊

Okay, so let's get one thing straight. Although these pakodas are called "maggi pakodas", they taste nothing like the ubiquitous maggi noodles. And that is because we don't use the masala tastemaker while cooking the noodles. Instead, we cook the noodles plain and then mix them with lots of fresh ginger, bird's eye green chillies, fresh coriander leaves, red onions, gram flour and cooked rice. So the obvious question would then be - do we need to use only maggi noodles to make this snack? The answer is NO. You can use whatever wheat-based noodles that catches your fancy. Kapish?

Coming back to maggi, I know that there are people who absolutely love maggi (like me) and people who don't enjoy it (both my in-laws). One thing is for sure - whether you like maggi or not, you will certainly devour these  flavourful and crispy maggi pakodas.

Since I have my in-laws at home, things are pretty busy around here. You can tell by the quality of photos in this post (for the record, I almost never take food pics using my camera phone and in artificial light but I had no choice so kindly excuse). 

I'm signing off now folks. Go make these ASAP (I think I ate about 20. They are that good).

Paperless Post: Beautiful Customizable Online Invitations for Every Occasion

Service Review

i
I know things have been pretty quiet around here lately but I am very much alive folks. A quick trip back home kept me away from blogging for a few weeks.

So if you don’t know this already, I express myself best through words. I believe that I am more a writer than a talker (many who know me well may disagree since the latter classification matches my extrovert personality). But I’d say I am able to convey much more through writing than speaking and that is where I am most at ease. If you are wondering where I am going with this, today's post is all about expression and communication. 

I was recently contacted my Paperless Post, an e-commerce company based in New York City that focuses on design-driven online and printed stationery. Paperless Post partners with leading fashion designers including Kate Spade New York, Jonathan Adler and Oscar de la Renta. The company kindly credited my account with coins to try the Paperless Post service in exchange for a review on my blog.

i
Let me start by saying that I was (and probably always will be) a fan of snail mail. I still have treasured stacks of hand-written letters, birthday and holiday greeting cards from my exchanges with friends and cousins during my teenage years and early adult life. Even for my own wedding, the invitation card that I distributed to my closest friends, colleagues and teachers was carefully hand-written in my signature cursive style. I am a huge fan of the old fashioned approach.

But ever since the internet took control of our lives, this tradition is slowly fading away. It isn’t really surprising. Let’s get real - in today’s fast-paced and busy world, time is a precious commodity. Sending traditional print cards requires multiple steps from selecting and buying the card from the local store to writing  a personal note, buying a stamp and then delivering it via mailbox or post office. The whole shebang takes time and money, not to mention effort.

Online cards on the other hand come at a fraction of the cost (or sometimes even free), saves on paper, are easily accessible, can be personalized, only requires an internet connection and can be sent to anyone, anywhere in an instant.

I’ll admit – as a mom of young girls, I receive a fair amount of birthday invitations. A few of them printed invitation cards and most others, digital cards (mainly sent through WhatsApp). It has happened a few times that I have misplaced the printed invites and spent a considerable chunk of time turning the house upside-down in order to find them. Digital cards on the other hand are easy to recover - all I have to do is whip out my phone and quickly re-confirm the date and time. Although printed cards do look and feel beautiful and convey a more personal touch, not too many people look back on the days of tedious envelope folding and stamp sticking with fondness.

The original artwork at Paperless Post is created by a collaborative group of artists, designers and letterers. Every year, over a thousand unique invitations and cards are designed in their in-house studio.

Using this platform, you can design & create your own invitations using an impressive selection of designs for birthdays, weddings, holidays, celebrations, parties, announcements and more.

Book review: the Century trilogy by Ken Follett

This is the most time-consuming and tricky book review I have ever written. Reviewing three novels (each around 800-1000+ pages long) is not a simple task as you can imagine. I can't even wrap my head around the hours of extensive research, painstaking effort and revisions the author Ken Follett took to complete them. But this is one review I just had to do it because these three books come together to form a literary masterpiece that I believe everyone should read.

Reading the Century trilogy is akin to taking a history lesson - only far more interesting than anything that comes out of a classroom! The author takes the reader on a vivid journey back in time to the events preceding World War I. Through the lives of five fictional families, he recounts the most important historical events of the twentieth century namely,
1. World War I that followed after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary with Germany and Austria-Hungary on the one hand, and Russia, France, and Great Britain on the other
2. World War II that arose from the political takeover of Germany by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party, Italian Fascism, and Japanese militarism. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers - Germany, Italy, and Japan against the Allies - France, Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union and
3. Cold War, the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the communist states and capitalist states.

***Plot***

The novels narrate the story of five inextricably linked families - American, German, Russian, English and Welsh - as three generations navigate through almost 80 years that sees wars, hardship, suffering,  tyranny, uprising, political unrest and revolutions. The lives of the characters illuminate the violent and world-changing vacillations of the 20th century. The author has inserted real historical figures into the story, and their interaction with the fictional characters has been skillfully executed.

World War I was a significant turning point in the political, cultural, economic, and social climate of the world. The war and its immediate aftermath sparked numerous revolutions and uprisings. Despite the creation of League of Nations, a body that was intended to prevent future wars, the Second World War followed just over twenty years later. World War II included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war. The high-octane storytelling moves the characters through these series of events offering unique perspectives and experiences. Additionally, the reader is given insights into anti-communist uprisings, such as the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring in 1968, and the botched US Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in 1961.

Aside from the obvious history and politics, the rich story Ken Follett weaves sheds light on women's suffrage, the nuclear arms race, condition of soldiers in the trenches, American civil rights, interracial relationships, conscription, opposition to the Vietnam war, activism for freedom of speech, alternative media, sexual revolution, the changing music scene, rise of the hippie and alternative lifestyles and even experimentation with drugs.