Fun in the Sun: Good times in Udaipur

Hi all,

Please don't say Oh Lord! she's back!...I've been in Udaipur for the past few weeks. And it's not like my trip to Jodhpur earlier for my friends wedding. I am here as part of a fellowship. Yes! I am not unintelligent as I had assumed. Or were the fellowship people looking for wacky, not right in the head kinda people? Ok don't answer that!

Well, it all started with a very funny interview. After which I was very sure I wouldn't get into the damn fellowship. Damn! those people can ask questions! And you will leave with your bubble burst. It felt like they asked the same question a million different ways...even when I told them very explicitly that I had no answer to their questions. And your private life which you want to stay that way...will NOT stay that way! He asked me if I was in a relationship! For Gods sake, who does that? I wasn't cowed, just lost all hopes on the interview and ricocheted back...How does my being in a relationship affect your fellowship? what does it have to do with your fellowship? Ha! sometimes you need to throw these buggers on their patooties! The man had no answer and I was satisfied with my pettyishness. Anyway I left Koramangala saying it was a stupid waste of time, but I did have fun. And as fate would have it (or rather the fellowship people were unintelligent) I received an email saying I was accepted into the fellowship (Proof of my intelligence!). Well, they do say some things turn up unexpected in life.

After much wheedling and persuasion, ranting and raving (both mum and I participated), begging and howling, throwing shitty tantrums and making puppy eyes at my dad...my folks agreed to send me! (mind you, mum tried to stop me at the airport too).  Flight change in Delhi was a traumatic experience...even with the air-conditioning on the terminal was like an oven (in all this imagine me running around like a duck with two bags in hand!). Next part...AMAZING...I flew business class to Udaipur! ooh nice! Landed in Udaipur and waited and waited and read a very boring current affairs book! (Yup...I finished and understood it!). Finally hitched a ride with a friend to Krish Vigyan Kendra (KVK)...this was where we fellows spent our carefree training days. First look...slightly disappointed, but manageable. After all I was back in the same place as Dad after forty years! Next, met fellows and decided to roam around the city doing some sight-seeing. I went to city palace. For those of you who don't know me...I love anything historical, and I would give my right arm (not really...metaphorically used, please note) to be part of princely India. I hopped, skipped and danced all around the palace...forced others with better cameras to take pictures of very beautiful me! (I am conceited okay...deal with it!) And then had a very disgusting lunch I'd rather forget but don't have the good fortune to have selective amnesia! Shopped, shopped and shopped some more. Saw two beautiful lakes, went boating in one (I curse the others who didn't want to go boating in Lake Picchola! But then I got to go again...so it's alright). Went to a temple and struck up a conversation with some random old lady...she was nice though! And finally at 8:30 P.M went back to KVK to meet the rest of the gang. And that was just the 1st day.

Shraddha and I were fascinated with the fancy washrooms in The Lake Picchola Hotel :)

A Rolls-Royce Phantom II, who can resist that, especially if Roger Moore drove around town in it!

Bhargav Mistry with the Sarode at Hulchul cafe

Hulchul Cafe at Shikshantar

The drum circle in Hulchul cafe...the frenzied pace of the music and the beats pulse in your blood

Shraddha and I spending a lazy sunday afternoon on Gangaur Ghat

Now I wish I could've done that...though I hate those who treat the pristine waters as a bathhouse, it was fun to watch the kids cool off in the heat

Silk Bound Books

Normally I am not the sort who would eat Gulab Jamun, But this one Sweet Stall in Old town got me hooked...anyone would drool at the sight of the steaming Gulab Jamun

Fascinated as I was with this doll house like structure, I wonder how the residents manage in such cramped quarters...I'd get claustrophobic.

Lights on at Lake Pichhola...looks like it's out of a fairytale

When I ran around the City palace and Lake Picchola waving my arms and screaming 'Bats in my hair!' Gawd, emabarassing!

Now am more like a localite, I sit at Gangaur Ghat waiting for the sunset and the palace lights to come on and the bats (how can I forget them!) to fly haphazardly in every direction. I eat malai ghevar at Jodhpur mishtan bhandar, dal baati choorma at Santosh Bhojanalaya and sit in the seedy FC Restaurant with amazing views but horrible food! We even walked 12kms in the middle of the night to get back to KVK...all thanks to Guruji Rahul Nainwal, who told us it was only 5 or 6kms at most! My feet were torn, I was sleep deprived (as was Lucky for 4 days and wanted to sleep on the footpath!) and it was 4 in the morning, but I was in great spirits! By the way the Guruji left Udaipur without treating me to the margarita that he owed me! Next time I drag him to Ambrai! (Evil genius me!) Early morning dips in Badi lake, where one particular fellow tested the water displacement theory and almost emptied the damn lake! (what the hell was he thinking? that he was as light as Gai?) Trek to Nimaj mata temple where I got 'Prashad' (Cow dung) on my clothes! (Mom, I felt like Cheppudira Raju uncle!) Got freaked by some stoner dude, almost got gored by some stampeding cow, ate loads and loads of kulfi (coming back from lunch, I would almost look like a dog with it's tongue hanging out). Met my margarita sis, Pooja Warrier! Designed a funky sleeping bag and got an awfully designed dress in return! Shopped on the roadsides for clothes and anklets. Ate street food! Basically did everything I normally wouldn't dream of doing. It was a good few days of fun and sun (more sun though!). Made some wonderful friends for life! Lots more to do still...have to check out the vintage car collection, some restaurant called savage garden, Kumbalgarh, Chittorgarh, Sajjangarh, the lake palaces and Udaivilas Palace, Nathdwara, shikshantar's hulchul cafe, Jodhpur (again, am in love with this place) Jaisalmer...so much to do in so little time!

All this while I had only one prayer, please rain a little bit, it's way too sunny for someone from Coorg! And after days and days the rain gods have obliged. But dear rain gods, I asked for little rain not enough to build a dam! Cool down a little dudes! We'll take it slow...a little rain per day is not much to ask is it (preferably in the nights). Ok.

Now if you're looking for a recipe, I haven't got one. I am here for a fellowship, not recipe testing! But I will be good and post an easy recipe sometime. Until then, you just have to listen to my adventures in Udaipur or wherever I happen to go.

Love,
Chaitanya

Sweet Potato Bundt Cake with Rum-Spiked Dates

This was one of those cakes that I wanted to try for a long, long time...but never got around to making it. Either for lack of the main ingredient, sweet potato or just plain laziness. One evening, sitting out in the verandah with mum, I happened to mention something about this cake. Mum was intrigued and the very next day she got some sweet potatoes for me. Even then, it took me a few more days to get myself together and go bake. The cake is definitely on the boozier side, and that got my dad's and my vote. The original recipe called for rum plumped golden raisins. And since I had run out of raisins, I used dates instead.

any cake that has rum and dates makes for a brilliant treat... don't you think?

All you have to do is....

Sieve the dry ingredients...set aside
Grease the bundt tin and dust with flour...

Beat some eggs and sugar till light and frothy and nearly doubled in volume.

The electricity in our house decide to go on a long vacation when I put the eggs in the bowl and I had to do the whole thing by hand. Entirely feasible, but kills your arms with all that exercise. Make this cake regularly, and you'll definitely have beefy, mom arms! But don't let that stop you, do try it once.

Add the rest of the wet ingredients and then...

Fold in the mashed and boiled sweet potato alternating with the dry ingredients and combine.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake...

Ok...now you have to remember that we had no electricity at home because the transformer blew up in flames. And the cake had to be baked in a gas oven that definitely belongs in the Victorian era! It's temperamental and dysfunctional. Enough to give any baker the heebie-jeebies! But still, my mum wouldn't give up, she said lets give it a try and allow the cake to bake at a lower temperature but for slightly longer than the time specified by the recipe. The lower temperature is because the oven refuses to go beyond 150-165 degrees Celcius. And after all that explanation I present to you the slightly burnt cake...but don't hold it against me, blame the neanderthal gas oven!

Here's a slice...

This recipe makes a very large cake, so there's plenty for everyone. Share a slice of the cake with family and friends on a cold evening with a cup of steaming coffee!

Sweet Potato Bundt Cake with Rum-Spiked Dates

makes a very large cake, serves 16-20

recipe adapted from Mary Allen at http://whisktogether.wordpress.com/

Ingredients

3/4 cup dates, chopped into bits
1/3 cup dark rum, plus more if needed ( I always need more)
3 cups flour, plus more for the pan
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus extra for salting the water ( I used flaked sea salt, you can use table salt if you don't have it)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 large sweet potatoes (I didn't use 3, I find that 2 large ones are more than enough)
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk (make your own by adding 3/4 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to 3/4 cup of milk and allow to stand for 5 minutes before using in your recipe).

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10 inch bundt pan.
2. For 30 minutes or so, soak the dates in the rum. Sift together the flour, baking powder, soda, salt and spices.
3. Prep the sweet potatoes while the dates are soaking: peel and cut into 1″ pieces. Boil in a large pot of water until tender. Pour them into a colander to drain. Next, mash them and measure out 2 cups. I would suggest passing the pulp through a fine mesh strainer, so you don't get any of the fibers in your cake.
4. With your mixer (use a whisk attachment if available), beat eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy – about 2 minutes. Add vegetable oil and vanilla.
5. Drain dates BUT keep the liquid!!! Add 1/4 cup of that drained liquid to the batter (I added all of it). Add the 2 cups of sweet potato mash to the batter. Mix to combine.
6. Next, you are going to do the alternating method. This is when you add about one third of the flour. Then, half the buttermilk. Another 1/3 of the flour. The other half of the buttermilk. Finally, end with the rest of the flour.
7. Fold in the soaked dates. Pour into your bundt pan and bake for 80 minutes (about 50 minutes into the baking time, cover he top of the cake with aluminum foil to prevent the top from burning) . Cool 10 minutes and then turn upside down onto a wire rack. Allow to cool completely before cutting and serving the cake.

Glaze

The recipe does call for a glaze, but I did not make it. Firstly because I was so tired from all the mixing by hand and watching out so the Victorian era gas oven didn't burn my cake ( which it managed to do anyway!) and mainly because I felt the cake was quite sweet on it's own and didn't need any more help from the glaze, or it'd be overpoweringly sweet and will put most anybody in a Diabetic Coma!!! But if you still feel you need it here's the recipe...

1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons whipping cream
1 tablespoon reserved rum from cake recipe

To make the Glaze: In a saucepan mix the sugar, butter and cream. Bring to a boil and then let it boil another 3 minutes. Take the pan off of the heat. Add 1 Tbsp. of the reserved rum or fresh if you ran out.

Using a toothpick (or skewers because they are longer), poke a bunch of holes into the cake. Drizzle 1/3 of the glaze on the warm cake. Now wait 15 minutes. Add the rest of the glaze. Now, let the cake cool completely.

*The glaze should be poured on a warm cake, not a cooled cake.

Enjoy with a hot cup of coffee!

Until next time,

Happy Baking!!!

Pineapple fluff...an easy, peasy, light dessert

First lets start with the definition of 'fluff'. Here's what I found on http://dictionary.reference.com/ , Fluff - a soft, light, downy mass; example- a fluff of summer clouds. And this is exactly how I would describe this dessert. With every mouthful, you feel like you're eating a soft, downy, sweet and pillowy cloud! With the added bonus of pineapple chunks scattered  in the mixture. Pineapple fluff was one of the first desserts I learned to make, probably around 17 years ago. And I still make it very often, because we all love it. And even though it has cream, it's not one of those desserts that will make you feel heavy and bloated. And you know what, I didn't know until this evening that this is quite a famous dessert in Sri Lanka. I always assumed only a few of us knew (shows how much I really know!). All thanks to the search God called Google! And it uses only 4 ingredients (that can be found in any kitchen) and 3 utensils (unless you're really messy). Now I guess I can be elevated to Angel status ( I am not yet up for Godliness, not sure I can handle it)! :)

I forgot to include light cream in the picture, but you can always pretend it's a healthy dessert :)

Here's the recipe for one of the easiest desserts ever, you'll be thanking me for ever.

Pineapple Fluff

see the frothy air bubbles on the surface, this is what makes this dessert so light

Ingredients
1 can - Pineapple in syrup or juice (canned pineapple)
5 tablespoon - granulated white sugar
1 tablespoon - gelatin granules ( sprinkle the gelatin over 2 tbsp of water in a small bowl and set aside to sponge)
400 ml - light cream ( I used Amul)

Directions
Drain the pineapple and pour the juice/ syrup into a medium sized saucepan. Cut the pineapple into small chunks and set aside.
Into the saucepan with the juice/ syrup, add the sugar and place on medium heat. Stir till the sugar dissolves.
When the juice/syrup starts to simmer, take off heat and immediately add the sponged gelatin and stir till completely dissolved. Set aside to cool.
When the sweetened syrup/ juice cools slightly, strain the mixture to remove any impurities and transfer it to a mixer jar and allow to cool completely. Then place the mixer jar in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes or until almost set, but with a nice wobble.
Plug the mixer jar in and blitz the mixture until nice, white and frothy ( it always reminds me of sea foam). Give it a stir and blitz again for a minute and refrigerate again for 20 minutes or until almost set.
Blitz the contents of the jar again after 20 minutes, then immediately add the cream and give a quick blitz to mix it all in.
Pour into a serving dish ( or ramekins if you want individual servings), add the chunks of pineapple and lightly stir with a spatula to spread it evenly. Cover with cling and allow to half-set on your kitchen counter for 20 minutes and then place the dish in the refrigerator until completely set. Serve chilled.

you can see the pineapple chunks at the bottom

You can substitute Lychees for the pineapple, just reduce the amount of sugar slightly. Anyway taste and go from there.
See, all done in just a few steps, didn't I tell you it was easy-peasy! Now go make some for yourself.

Oh! We went on the fisherman's Coracle in the Harangi Backwaters near our house. Here's a picture of the sunset from there.

spectacular...isn't it?

Until next time,
Happy Baking!!!

Bitten by the Blondie bug!

Have you ever seen something on a TV show and decided on the spot that it was the best thing ever a person could think of, and you want to just grab it from the stupid person hosting the show and greedily eat it all up? This happens to me on a very regular basis. And it is also what happened when for the first time I saw someone making Blondies on a cookery show. I decide right then and there I had to taste it, and to taste I had to bake some blondies. Granted, it took a few (or rather more than a few) years till I actually made them. I ran around for a few years baking everything else but blondies. But all the time, blondies managed to stay in the back of my mind. And finally, one fine day, the day that chocoholics dread happened...I ran out of cocoa powder and chocolate! Imagine my horror! But no worries, the blondies that were consigned to the back of my mind came to the rescue...And so the blondie came to be a hot favorite and also found a permanent place among my treasured recipe books. Here's a picture...

don't they look nice...ok ignore the not so well cut piece...ok fine I might have nibbled on it

It seems these days everybody's baking blondies. And you can find any number of versions you want online. So it happened, that like everyone else I too was bitten by the blondie bug! ( don't go thinking of blondies and bugs together...that's just plain gross!) Now, don't get me wrong...just because I am prosing on and on about blondies, it doesn't mean I love them more than brownies. Brownies are my all time favorite, as you might have noticed from the recipes I've put up earlier.

 Ok, now for the definition...in simple words, a blondie (if you can't tell by it's name) is a brownie without the chocolate. As nice as blondies are, they are no match to a chocolatey, gooey, fudgy brownie. I think blondies were made by a Choco-hater (do those things actually exist???). Or the person who made them first, must have run out of chocolate (like me). Any way, the history really doesn't matter to me, as long as it tastes good.

I love chocolate vermicelli 

Enough chit-chat, and off to the recipe we go. I am not sure where exactly I got this recipe from, but whoever came up with it...here's a tight hug and a big thank you for an amazing blondie!

White Chocolate Blondies

Ingredients
1/2 cup Unsalted butter
5 oz. (142.5 gm) White chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
11/2 tsp Vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup chocolate vermicelli (sprinkles)
1/4 cup swirled chocolate chips (picture below for reference) You can use normal chocolate chips if you can't find these.

I found these at a specialty store

Directions
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease an 8 inch (20 cm) square pan and line it with aluminum foil.
Melt butter in a small saucepan, add the white chocolate to the hot melted butter and stir till all the chocolate has melted and is smooth. Alternatively, put the chocolate and the butter in the microwave and melt in short bursts till smooth.
Stir in the sugars into this chocolatey mixture. Next, whisk in the eggs and vanilla extract until the mixture is smooth.
Sieve the dry ingredients together and fold into the sugary chocolate mixture until almost incorporated, then tip in the chocolate chips and half of the chocolate vermicelli (reserve the other half to sprinkle on top of the batter). Fold in gently, but do not over-mix.
Pour the batter into the prepared tin and scatter the rest of the sprinkles on the top and bake for about 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove the blondies from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out of the tin and cutting into neat squares.
Serve warm or cold, with a cup of coffee. Perfect!
Can be stored in an air-tight container for upto 3 days or frozen upto 6 months (if it lasts so long).

Well, that's all for now...until next time,
Happy Baking!!!