A Brownie for a Cold Night.

Food is Celebration.

Hello again!

Its mighty cold isn't it? I mean its been impossible for me to move around without sneezing within inches of my life! I've been reduced to becoming a blanket-ghost now! (You know - when you used to cover yourself with a blanket and try to scare your brother! That kinda ghost!) To top it, I've come down with a cold and don't like it one bit. :(

To beat a cold, people might suggest one or all of the following :

  1. Snuggle into bed and get tangled in blankets!
  2. Drink tea all day long.
  3. Wear every fluffy, woollen thing you and your mother possess.
  4. Go shopping, do the mall walk and heat up seeing the prices!
  5. Or just dunk yourself into a tub of hot water!

After spending most of Saturday doing most the above, I decided it was high time to get off my bum and DO something! 

I mean Saturdays and Sundays are days meant for one to do what they've been longing to do all week! And to let these oh-so important days to go waste? Not in my world. Nope. Not at all!

Yet, a cold is one of the most unpleasant things I find in this world. I mean, I've had stitches, broken bones and all that thingamajig, but catching a cold beats them any day!

I wanted needed something to cheer myself up, soon , and there it was.

The answer to all of life's questions!

Chocolate!

I quickly shuffled through every recipe I had and found a recipe for the most lovely, moist and decadent brownies ever!!

I thought sharing it would be a good idea, so here it is!

Stuff that you need :

1/3 cup of Dark Chocolate ( The cooking variety is best, but if you don't have that, Bourneville will suffice!)
1/2 a cup of Butter
2/3 cup of White Granulated Sugar
1/3 Cup of Brown Sugar (In case you don't have this, just add 1/3 cup of white sugar more!)
2 Eggs.
1 tablespoon of Yoghurt.
1/2 a cup of Chopped Walnuts.
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
1/2 tsp Salt
1 Heaped Cup of Flour. (Maida)

The method :

  • Preheat the oven at 180 C and prepare a pan for baking.
  • Put the Chocolate and the butter to melt over a pan of water.
  • Once they both have melted to form a smooth, dark liquid, stir in all the sugar. Mix well.
  • The resulting mixture will be grainy, with undissolved sugar crystals, but that's alright, just remove the bowl from heat and let it cool.
  • In a separate bowl, whisk the two eggs. You don't need to beat them for eons, just whisk them like you would for an omelet.
  • Now add the cool chocolate+butter+sugar mixture to this and combine.
  • Add the vanilla essence and yoghurt.
  • Add the Flour and mix with a light hand.
  • Lastly, stir in the chopped walnuts.
  • Now pour onto the prepared pan and garnish with some more walnuts.
  • Dunk it into the oven and let it cook for 25-30 minutes.


  • Cut into squares and serve.
  • Prepare to be praised high and low when you serve this to your (hungry) family!
This recipe is so easy and the end product so fudgey and sticky and awesome, that my family and I wiped out an entire batch within minutes!
I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

Bon apetit!!

Passion = Food.

Well, if you know me, you'll know this.

Food inspires me.


It uplifts my mood.


It has a language of its own.



And its so beautiful!









Be it something small, like a bowl of maggi and chai ; or pasta e olio! (which is just pasta tossed in olive oil + garlic may I add!) it holds equal joy for me!

And food, like happiness, is a joy to be shared.

That's why I'm going to modify what my blog is about.

From now on, its gonna be about my food journey. Be it a place I ate something at. Or something I made. Or a recipe that I stole. :P Its gonna be more food than probably you can handle. But that's what's driving me right now (apart from work, of course!) and I think that I should write about what I love, so that what I write, is from my heart - true and pure.

I hope you enjoy this new flavor to anindiangirlsworld :)

Keep your knives sharp and spoons ready!

Ciao,
Aradhna.

A Happy Ending.

/hihi

If you know me, then you might've observed two very obvious things about me.

1. I'm a little illogical at times.
2. I tend to stick hard to my theories.

Don't mistake this as some Emo-phase brought on post!
Its just about something very small that happened to me this Saturday!

I'm sure you all remember Peppy? Those awesome golden balls of cheese that we spent our childhoods eating? We never had these "Baked. Not Fried" slogans blaring at us! We just had what we wanted.

Instant gratification. Short and simple.

Well, I wanted just that. But the timing was wrong.

As it happens, I was reading and realized that I was a bit hungry. It wasn't enough to drive me into the kitchen to start cooking though. I mean I wanted something out of a box or rather a packet! And this just fit the bill!
I quickly called up the grocery store in my complex to ask whether they had it. The problem : He didn't have it with him and I knew he was shutting shop in 5 minutes.

Now the uncle at the shop is really old, and when I called up he was kinda expecting me to come down to the shop. He's really nice and I somehow felt that the least I could do was go and get some bread and eggs.

I went downstairs and there at the counter was this big and fluffy pack of Peppy sitting right there :) Turns out he knew about this little quirk of mine and had asked his helper to get it from the warehouse for me.

I quickly paid and left, but for some reason, I felt so happy!
That's the illogical part of me you know. There was nothing special about this little event maybe. But I still feel happy about it! Its like when you want something so bad and you know that it might not happen and you try a little and suddenly... you've got it!

My theory for this is that maybe when you do something with good intentions, Good comes back to you. Maybe it requires just a thought. It may require some action. But if it exists in any tiny corner of your being, it can pull Good towards you.
With that, I hope you had a great Diwali! (and recovered your energy this weekend!)

Keep thinking!
/bye

This is gonna be the death of me!

/hihi

I have a feeling that there's gonna be day when nothings gonna fit and I'll have to adopt a Nigella-esque style of living. Trust me. This IS does have a very high probability of occurring.

But will I ever give up cake?

/hmm

I really don't know the answer to that question!
For now, a big NO will have to do cuz lets face it. There's nothing as therapeutic as baking. When there are beautiful ingredients that come together to become this wonderful spongey and sweet smelling thing, why pay a thousand bucks to go do something else?


Today, I baked after like 2 weeks, and I honestly feel like there's a spring to my step!

I've got something pretty simple today : Its Marble Cake!

Now Marble Cake has always been my favorite  ( To be honest : I'm bad with favorites. There's no food that I don't eat. And I pretty much enjoy everything. So take that with a pinch of salt :) )

Marble Cake is awesome because its got a bit of vanilla sponge and chocolate in every bite! /XD

/please

I could eat it every day of my life and never get bored of it!

I've got a few pics of the process. The end result is still in the oven! Fingers Crossed! /sweat













So i'm gonna run now! Gotta check on the cake!

/bye


_________________________________________________________________________________

Update Time!

So here's the cake :)


Ta Da!!!!!

/bye




Can you make Ice-Cream at home?

/hihi

At the risk of sounding like the Bob the Builder song, Yes we can!

And you dont require sophisticated machinery or exotic ingredients. All you require is Patience!













You've made something that you thought was terribly hard/next to impossible to make. Something you thought could only be made in a factory and bought off a shelf!

Honestly, how good does that feel? 

Getting a Job and Growing up. (Well, sort of!)

/hihi

Somehow I've landed myself a (college) placement and I can now heave a sigh of relief.
However, all this still doesn't impress the fact that I'm growing up on my parents. Do they realize that I'm gonna be responsible for something important? For myself?

That I'm not gonna be their little girl anymore?

I'm 20 years old, and where am I?

Well I can't say that I'm where I always figured I would be!
Cuz lets be real, when you were a kid, you must've wanted to be a Ninja or a Ballerina or something of that sort!

(I prayed to God to make Hogwarts real!)

But, I really feel that good things happen to good people. And this is something good.

Its my first step into the corporate world, and I hope that it'll be a great experience!

I start work on 3rd September. A date that's gonna be imprinted upon my memory forever. You don't forget the first time you do something major, do you?

Among all this, I've also realized that mom and dad are growing older. Its not fun to realize how much you've aged suddenly; here its happening to both parties- parents and me!

Still, Growing old is inevitable.
However, Growing old - Optional!

Stay happy!

/bye

So let them eat Cake!

/hihi

A hint of that Buttery-Vanilla smell and I melt. I feel like everything's right in the world. Like I'm in my happy, peaceful place.
Why does cake manage to evoke emotions like that?

(How I wish I could make my house smell like a bakery :D )

There's nothing as therapeutic in the world as baking.
The visual contrast of the soft white peaks of buttercream that dissappear into the dark of the chocolate. The tang of lemony zest as it hits the roof of your mouth. The feel of warm sponge on a cold morning. Just thinking about all this makes me crave another slice of cake!

For most people, baking is associated with tedium and stress. Do this and then do that, don't do this or the cake will collapse!

For me, baking should be quick (I'm looking at under an hour here) and effective. (I mean tasty stuff !) Thats why I'm gonna share this recipe with you.

It calls for :

1/2 Cup of Butter (Margarine will do just fine as well)
1/2 Cup Sugar
3/4 Cup of Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 Cup Vanilla Custard Powder
1 tsp Lemon juice
Some Lemon rind
2 Eggs (Large-ish)

The steps :

1. Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.


Now listen up!
This is the part that we always ignore :( When we're supposed to beat the two till they're light and fluffy, why do we stop in between? If you have an electric beater like I do, just keep going for about 5 minutes. Whats happens if you don't get them light and fluffy? Well, the cake doesn't turn out right.
So just keep at it :)


Right now its all golden yumminess !


And now its all pale and delicate and pretty!


What happens is that the sugar crystals spin up the fat molecules and make them airy and light. Thats how you get the sugar mixed with the fat well, giving your cake an even texture.

2. In another bowl, sift the Flour, Baking powder and Vanilla Custard Powder. Sifting is important cuz it gets rid of all the lumps, distributes the raising agent evenly throughout the flour and contributes to a nice and fluffy cake !




3. Squeeze a whole lemon into the creamed butter and sugar. Grate some of the lemon rind into it. I feel that every cake does well with vanilla essence. It removes the eggy smell from cakes and gives them that soul-warming bakery air :) Add the essence now :)



4. After mixing all that, add one egg straight into the above mixture. Beat.



Doesn't it look awesome?

5. Add a few spoonfuls of the sifted flour and beat.


6. Now add the second egg, beat and gradually mix in all the flour.


You'll get a mix that looks somewhat like this ^
Feel free to have a taste!

7. Now I have a rice cooker, which actually does like loads of cooking and not just rice making ! Honestly, I love cooking with it and if you have seen some of my previous recipes (link here) they turn out pretty good!

Back to the recipe !

Pour in about a litre of water. As you know, its a steamed cake and its gonna have to cook for longer than the oven cakes cuz (you know this!) steaming is slower than convection cooking! Thus that litre of water.

Heat it up to a boil.

Add a small stand into it if you have one. If you dont, just place a medium sized bowl in the centre as your makeshift stand.

The water should be coming up to half of the cake mold.


I know, its a bit messy, but its gonna turn out just fine :)

8.  Put the lid on and let the cake steam for about an hour. If you do want to check on how the cake is doing, do so only after half an hour. Honestly, you can disappear on this cake and still have it turn out fine! No risk of burning here !


Tada! Isn't she gorgeous!

9. Now just de-mold it onto some kitchen towel, after it s cool of course!


10. Aaaaand drumroll please!



There you have it! A Lemon Sponge cake that you can brag about!

:P

/bye

Live. Love. Eat.