Auf Weidersehen!

Few of you know I speak a little Deutsch, another one of my pursuits among others in a million different directions. 'Auf Weidersehen' means Goodbye; and what could be more appropriate for a 'Bon-Voyage' themed farewell cake?

Dense chocolate cake layered with dark chocolate ganache and covered with chocolate butter-cream and fondant, and accessories.

made of modelling pas

 This cake was ordered by Hiral's friends for her farewell party. Dark chocolate was the cake of choice and I used a dense and super moist chocolate cake layered with dark chocolate ganache. For the fondant to hold I used chocolate butter-cream for a crumb coat.

There were a lot of little bits that went onto the cake; things Hiral specially likes. For instance, Hiral was travelling to Australia for her Masters, hence the flag of Australia.

Hiral is also an absolute fast food junkie so I put a couple of burgers and fries too. Her fondness for coffee is displayed by the steaming mugs of coffee. She is also a champagne enthusiast so on went a bottle of Moet! This was especially fun to make since I was using edible glitter for the first time.

made of modelling paste

This was a first for me as I had never done models of people before. Hiral is a fan of curly hair so I decided to put a face topper with wild curls. This little head was a lot of fun to make! I used toothpicks to curl the hair; once it had set I glued it to the head. I think it was a decent first attempt :)

made of modelling paste

made of modelling paste

Hiral being a globe-trotter, I decided to use a cake pop to show this. A dense chocolate cake pop covered in green and blue fondant to make a tiny earth with footprints painted on.

She's also fond of everything French! So a little message from her friends :)

So this was my first official order! 

It went well and was well received. A little tip for working with fondant though, that I picked up by trial and error : Fondant tends to sweat if it's shifted from low to high temperatures. So while working with a cake it's best to leave the fondant covering till the very end and not refrigerate the cake. Working in an air-conditioned room is the best option.

Happy Cake-baking-decorating-eating folks!

The Yeast Mystery

Fresh Bread Rolls

Bread was always a bit of a conundrum for me. I wanted each attempt to turn out perfectly, leading to three semi-failures. Weapons of mini destruction : check. Bread? Fail.

The experience of achieving perfect bread, the glee on your face the moment you see them fresh out of the oven, the exhilaration upon sinking your teeth into warm little buns : priceless.

This was my first attempt at bread in College. In fact it's the very first recipe they taught us! That joy has been since replicated twice in my own kitchen :)

Chutney Rolls

Chutney rolls are something we see quite often, and assume them to be complicated to make or not fancy enough. Well the chutney is a bit bland for the bread around it but I've tried a variation of Spicy Onions and it was the best snack ever! A friend and me polished off a whole batch in one sitting. There are a couple of other fillings on my list too like Herbed Chicken, Olive&Onion and Spicy Chicken. They are perfect for a party filler snack. 




When we made wholewheat bread we were given the option of using a loaf tin or just allowing the loaf to rise on a tray. Obviously I picked the tray and what a lovely rustic loaf it gave me. Just a tip for the health conscious : always ask for multigrain bread or wholewheat bread. Quite often brown bread is just white bread with a little caramel in it. Wholewheat flour is a little harder to handle and doesn't always give you a consistent product like gluten-filled refined white flour would. So eat smart :)

Somewhere in the middle of The Beginning

Being a home-baker is filling some empty spaces inside me that I didn't know I had.

All the things that I have lost and achieved in the past year seem of little consequence now, like the scales have been balanced.

So I'm a student at the Catering College in Bombay. I graduated last May from St. Xavier's with a BMS degree of very little value to me. I've always been baking but didn't ever have the confidence to actually charge people to eat my food. Joining this course has given me just the shot of confidence that I needed.

I took a Sugarcraft and Cake Decorating course too. Bit heavy on the investment side but worth it completely. So I've stared taking orders now!

It started with the Church Fair last week. Sold 4 dozen cupcakes!

And since then I've been posting as many pictures as I can, trying to show people the work I do.

This is Madeira cake that I made in class. Fine-crumb cake moistened by rich Madeira accentuated by tangy candied peel.