In pursuit of a cake........

After the last kitchen disaster, one would think I’d steer miles clear of any more new recipes for sometime; and usually I do too, but having read a recipe that had me drooling I decided it was time to don the chef’s hat once more. I decided to make this lovely Retro Coffee Cake for the Independence Day initially, but when I checked the ingredient list I realized I didn’t have cooking butter or cream in my stock pile. A step into the balcony showed that while it was raining it seemed like it would rain for quite a while. I wondered if I really wanted to go out hunting for stuff in this weather, and quickly assure myself great as that idea might be, it sure wasn’t something I was going to do. Also the fact that the very next day was a good friend’s birthday, made it easier to push the project by a day.

16^th dawned bright and sunny; It was as if all humour was restored in the world; birds were chirping; trees were bright and green and the Sun was beaming at the order of things. A perfect day for anything it seemed, after the previous day’s deluge it was very uplifting to have this picture perfect scenario greet you when you looked out.

The tricky thing about nature is that when it creates picture perfect surroundings one should immediately be at the highest possible degree of alertness; nature for all its charms is a prankster and it loves setting one up for disaster. All that beaming looks of the Sun were actually in anticipation of the tricks it chose to play. If only one could sue nature for false advertising……

Well, as I said before all looked pleasant, I waited for the driver to report in for work, once he was done cleaning the car, I stepped out. As I headed to the car suddenly this speeding twit came along and up splashed the dirty water on me….this unexpected drench apart from providing the onlookers some entertainment left me flabbergasted, the guy didn’t even stop to apologise…! Anyhow, I head back home, had a quick shower and spent quite a while drying out the hair, since I already was harbouring cold I really didn’t want it to go worse, but it seems like I have a sieve for a scalp that just lets the water pour into my skull and despite all precautions, sinusitis came over for a indefinite visit.

Anyway, got ready stepped this time pretty cautiously, and headed off to get butter & cream. Since with the damaged back my area of travel is quite limited I decided to simply head to the store close by that stock it. Well a day that starts with dirty puddle bath, never goes well, I checked at the store and they were out of stock, then I headed to another market close by and pretty much the same story, the guys were like cream has not been supplied for over 2 months now…… I thought here goes my plan out of the window, but decided to check out the Defence Colony Market too, but as I went to the car, the damaged knee gave out and it was a rush trip home. Spent a couple of hours resting and wondering about the vagaries of life and wondered how many ice-packs will it take, as the pain took its time abating I decided I’ll bake the cake later in the evening and just rest my back & knee.

So I rested, dreaming about this scrumptious cake. Evening came and I headed out to the check out the stores at the Defence Colony Mkt. and the back started protesting just as I reached there, since it was going to be a quick dash to 2 stores, I thought I’ll risk it, the tempting reward was so worth it, it seemed. But, as before, I drew blank one store didn’t have it and the other store had a product that was very dubious. I knew for sure I’d get it in the expat centric market at Basant Lok, but by then the spine made it clear if I persist in taxing it out more it will just chuck the job of keeping me upright, as it made its demands felt, I knew there was no way I’d make the distance, so I headed back home. Quite a wise decision it turned out to be because as I stepped out of the car, my knee gave out and I took and dive and came back with an unexpected face pack! Once, again entertaining the idle crowd, I tissued it off the best I could and went in for another shower. Once I settled back at home with the trusty ice-pack I took stock to the day that started pretty awful, went bad and ended spectacularly lousy and the worst no cake.

Now as I’m running temperature, have a lousy case of sinusitis, wherein I can barely move my head, it weighs a ton, back is pretty much out and the knee is encased in knee-support, throat has gotten worse and I still have no cake!

Adventure of the Banana Bread.

I know, I’m a fairly decent baker and a borderline cook, neither of these traits should actually have one inspired about cooking, but ideas oddly enough come more to the foolish lot than geniuses, which explains the greater prevalence of stupidity much better than anything.

Anyhow, after endless days of being disconnected with the world, I decided to quit surveying by empire like a monarch and realize that whilst a regent could actually look at his people and state with an air of contentment, when he/she’d look out from his/her palace at their kingdom; all I had for my smug gaze were bored and absolutely disinclined to heed anything expression of my pets and a couple of shoes. Since the television has been off-limits, I thought I’d bake, I know it sounds like a dumb explanation but intelligence and I are pretty much divorced.


I can picture people familiar with my cooking to slap their foreheads and go “Gawd! Help us.” But when enthusiasm strikes it takes no prisoners. So off I went armed with a tried and tested Banana Bread recipe of my sister. A 4-step process with 8 ingredients one can’t go wrong right??? Wrong.

Apparently one can go wrong, remarkably wrong at that, and whip up a disaster, all you need is a mind that “thinks” and ideas that have no business weaving themselves as thoughts flitting through your head and a few missing ingredients. As I settled to start on the project, I realized I was short on bananas, now most of us would go and get them, but lets face it; the odds of getting over-ripe bananas are pretty low to pick off a shelf and even lower is my enthusiasm to go dashing about all over the town hunting ingredients. I decided that I’d just have to make up for the moisture component and throw in coffee and convert it to Coffee bread. If one was ever to introspect and wonder where it all started going wrong then this was the point. Boarding the coffee train of thought was the start of a journey to the culinary hell, memories of which still strike terror in the core of my taste buds.

Once my head settled the issue of bananas, I discovered that my stash of walnuts had gone bad, so substituting one dry fruit for another (interesting isn’t it? One fruit-cake substituting one dry fruit for another) I zeroed in on almonds, coffee & almonds go together great so no big deal I thought. As I was creaming together the butter & sugar, another thought flitted in, (yes, my brain is a public park, where just about anyone can drop in, I guess) my mind went to the excellent coffee liqueur which was quietly aging into my cabinet, and I thought I’ll solve the whole issue of moisture and add flavour by tossing it in and crossing the coffee out. The thing about novice is that you really don’t know where to get-off. An intelligent soul who’d worked with alcohol before would’ve have firmly shown the door to this idea and requested it to get off the train but a twit like me would absolutely harbour such dim-wittedness fetch it slippers, nice rug and comfy robe and a cup of hot chocolate, basically, make it feel treasured.

So I pondered over the quantity and decided to throw in a nice glug, which turned out to be about 70mls for a single cake……….I know, *gasp the horrors* but I know it NOW, *shaking my head sadly* if only I’d known it then…., at that time it seemed like a grand idea, though I’m nothing like Egon from ‘Beau Peep’ I think I must come across as far worse than him…….anyway, so I threw in a good slug of it, whisked it all, forgot the vanilla and poured it in a nice baking tin and popped it into the oven.

Now that we’ve established the timeline of the origin of stupidity, we can proceed to the dawn of intelligence. 15 mins into the oven an aroma started wafting in that just jarred with my sensory delight I was awaiting, the whole room was reeking of alcohol……one thing that no one tells you that while alcohol added to cooking evaporates, the stink it leaves behind is unmistakable, there is no escaping the fact one slugged in this skunk. Yet hope tries to triumph against all odds, and I thought maybe as it baked the smell will disappear…… some of you may think, “why would anyone with an ounce of brain hold out to a hope like that?”….but in my defense, when you’ve spent well over 2 decades of your life, chugging rum-balls from local bakeries that have no taste of rum in them, you must be forgiven for harbouring foolish thoughts. In defense of all the bakeries, I guess they just add a drop of rum to a rum-ball, so that they can technically qualify as rum-balls while I on my trip unleashed it by the gallon.

So the stink keeps increasing, and my superior pets are walking around with their noses up in the air and sniffing about and shaking their head as to pay obituary to a master who’d metamorphosed into an alcoholic in a span of an hour. Their smug questioning looks were quite unnerving, add to that the infernal smell…….. When the oven went “ding” my heart sank down, there was no getting away with this disaster…. And it wasn’t the “yummy bread” I was dreaming of having a slice of with my post dinner coffee….If disappointment and foolishness could be crystallized into an object THIS was it. Leaving it overnight too didn’t age it for the better either and as I bit into it each time I mentally kicked my self for going once more on the vision of an unparalleled delightful taste rather than practicality.

After cooking up another disaster, one would think one would learn to cease, resist and desist all the newfangled ideas that keep popping into one’s head but the promise of a divine taste is more alluring than anything else….so on for the next experiment, it is gonna be Soya chunks in a pomegranate juice, chili, star anise and cocoa sauce….hot and sweet….should be yummy…. I think…….