Culinary Chronicles
By Yasmin Rahul Bakshi
While I was preparing to bake the cake, some echoes of the past reverberated through my mind.
I was the first born of my parents. Though my mother was fair and impartial between her two children, my father was evidently biased towards me, then. In spite of being a disciplinarian, he clearly favoured me over my brother.
He did not allow either of us to be disobedient or obstreperous yet he had his own ways to pamper me, out of which one was to bake cakes and brownies at my behest.
Decades ago it was perhaps an arduous and time consuming task to beat the batter manually, the counted strokes in one direction. And! He would do it all by himself to please his little princess. Layer with three shades – white, brown with cocoa and subtle crimson from cochineal in a round aluminum baking tin.
My father’s favourite basic recipe for the cake was a contribution of Mrs Friesen from “The Landour book of International recipes” – a treasured book that holds priceless recipes of the international communities that resided in Mussoorie in the bygone era. A book that was gifted to my mother in 1975 after her wedding by Mrs Helen Biswas, an eminent resident of Camel’s Back Road of those decades. A copy of which was a part of my trousseau too.
I stood on my toes beside him to watch him bake it in the good old classic circular oven. He would check it by tenderly inserting a fine knitting needle at the centre if done to perfection or not.
Meanwhile, I hovered around the kitchen, barely able to contain my excitement while waiting for the cake to be sliced.
The lingering aroma of vanilla when baked in a cake till today intoxicates me, sheer nostalgia! The wafting scent of butter and sugar is absolute magic.
The past inside me beats like a second heart.
Ingredients:
- Butter – 100 gms
- Sugar – 1 cup
- Flour – 2 cups
- Baking powder – 2 tsp
- Salt – ½ tsp
- Eggs – 3
- Vanilla – 1 tsp
- Milk – ⅔ cup plus 1 Tbsp
- Cocoa – 2 Tbsp
Method:
- Mix and sift all the dry ingredients except cocoa. Sift cocoa separately and keep aside.
- Cream the butter until soft and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar.
- In a bowl, beat the eggs until light.
- Mix the eggs with the creamed butter and sugar.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients in the above mixture, alternating with milk. Beat until smooth.
- Add the vanilla. Mix well.
- Separate the batter into equal parts.
- Add the cocoa to one part and beat well with 1 Tbsp of milk.
- Alternately pour the white and brown batter in a greased and dusted baking pan (to make layers).
- Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for 40 minutes.
- Check by inserting a skewer at the centre. If it comes out dry then it is done.
- Cool and cut into wedges or slices.
(Yasmin Rahul Bakshi is an accomplished senior consultant Chef and a food historian. A widely travelled Army wife from the Mussoorie hills with exposure to international cuisines & preserving recipes with the medium of food photography and digital content creation in the form of stories.)
