Skip to main content

First Steps

I love food, and I love cooking. But for some reason, baking scares me. I think it’s the almost scientific language in which the recipes are written – the clinical measurements, the careful control of oven temperatures, the almost zealous zest for correct timings has always intimidated me.

But finally, with my first post on this new blog, I take my first shaky steps into the world of baking. After a week of buying measuring cups & spoons, baking powder, the right kind of flour and sugar and of course, butter – my first recipe is Chocolate Spiral Shortbread.

To get to this neat stack, soften 100 g butter, then mix with 150 g plain flour and 50 g caster sugar. Now here’s the trick – you gotta rub it nice and soft with your fingertips to make tiny crumbs. Now divide this into two equal parts.
In the first bowl, add 1 tbsp cocoa powder (dissolved in 1 tbsp boiling water). Squeeze the crumbs until they begin to stick together and form an evenly colored dough. Do the same to the second part, but with 1 tsp vanilla essence this time round.

Now comes the fun part. Find four nonstick baking sheets (I used plastic sheets with some butter). Roll out the cocoa dough between two sheet to an approximate square. Do the same with the vanilla dough. The tricky bit is getting the two squares to be almost the same shape and size. Now peel the top sheet off both, and put the cocoa dough on top of the vanilla dough. Peel the second sheet for cocoa dough as well, and roll up the cookie dough into a long roll.

Let it rest in the fridge for for 10-15 minutes, and set your oven to preheat at 180C. Cut the roll into thick slices and bake for 10-12 minutes. You’d know when your kitchen starts smelling nice. My two end pieces didn’t come out right but the rest of it did, so I finished with 8 cookies.

Yummy….maybe baking isn’t that difficult after all!

Comments

Srivalli said…
thats a great looking one...interesting to read your blog..btw from where are you blogging..?..cos if you are blogging from India..thought to ask if you would be interested in Arusuvai Friendship Chain

Popular posts from this blog

I've found my perfect cookie

It's a bite sized cookie, with flavors of a pie, shape of a croissant and a pretty, pretty name. It's Rugelach. I first heard of this cookie when it became the baking pick for Tuesdays with Dorrie a couple of months back. The looks, the concept - everything was fascinating. And I've dreamed of making this cookie ever since. I ditched hundreds of recipes floating around and went straight to the master. It's Dorie Greenspan's recipe that I used, and ain't I glad I got it so perfect the very first time. So what's rugelach? It's cream-cheese pastry dough, rolled then cut into wedges, spread with jam and sugar and fillings of choice, rolled into crescents and baked. First the dough. Dorie did it in her processor, but I just went and did it by hand. Put 100 gms cream cheese and 100 gms butter out of the fridge until they were soft but still cold. Added both to a cup of plain flour (I omitted the salt because I use salted butter). Rubbed the flour and but

Aloo Paranthas

In all these years of blogging, I've somehow never managed to talk about aloo paranthas, the potato stuffed flatbread that's a standard breakfast in North India. Possibly because they are such a staple in our home, I found there wouldn't be enough interest in the recipe. But I've also realised over time that my mom's recipe is unique, using a combination of flavours and spices that make these paranthas delicious. But that's not the only reason for this post. I also wanted to tell you about a super cool party and some ways we found to make aloo paranthas even better and believe it or not, healthier. The party in question was hosted by Rushina at her cooking studio a few months back. For a while now, Rushina has been talking about the merits of cling film, parchment and something called cooking foil made by Asahi Kasei. Because we won't believe that you can really cook without oil but using science, she invited a bunch of us over for a potluck lunch.

Mystery Fruit

This only happened a few times every year, just when the rainy season kicked in. A street hawker will come by, straw basket on head. He will yell "kaul chapni" and I will run out to buy a bundle of these. Stuck together like flowers, they looked like a bouquet. Every hole contains a little fruit. You break out the package, peel the tiny fruit that pops out and eat it. Done slowly, it can take you an hour to eat an head. Or did, when I was about 12 years old. That was the last time I saw this fruit. I've never seen it again, didn't even know what it was called or where it came from. Three weeks back, Vikram Doctor wrote about a store in Khar that sells Sindhi foods. He described this fruit and I knew it came from my vivid childhood memories. And finally, I knew we were talking about lotus fruit. Now talk about coincidences. Last weekend, I was passing by a lane in Bandra and for the first time in many, many years I saw the straw basket filled with my mytery fru