Harveen's Baking Affair

My love for books has always found a place here in my baking blog. If you have been following me  , you probably know that I almost always bake for my monthly book club meeting  and thus the mention of the current read finds it way in my blog posts. Like always, I am looking forward to the Halloween themed cake for my next horror genre inspired book club meeting but for now , let's focus on another of my pursuits -taking part in a retro fashion show for Durga Pujo celebrations. I can't claim participating in fashion shows as a hobby pursuit or passionate inclination but after forty , one tends to be adventurous and with some real positive encouragement from friends , one tends to find oneself wearing high heels and walking down the stage . Our retro fashion show was a tribute to Bangla cinema and as such we had to focus on some dancing too . That difficult task was accomplished by taking lessons from more experienced friends in the few practice sessions we had . When it c

Gentle Readers of my blog might  be familiar with the fact that yours truly runs a local book club . We meet once a month , discuss the chosen book a "little" and gorge on  super yummy food a "lot". The latter is due to the fact that all members are such talented cooks as well as being ardent book lovers. Though , we might not admit it outright but the call of the food at the meeting is more than the lure of our current read . Well, to be fair , we all love books without question but I guess we are even bigger foodies. As luck would have it , our members come from diverse parts of India so our book club food boasts of having the finest culinary treats  from each region .Yes, we are blessed that way . Tempted to join our book club ? I hope you read the part where I mentioned that it was "local".So, unless you reside somewhere in the Research Triangle Area , the chances of joining it are negligible . I would strongly encourage you to start your own and

Nothing can be more indulging than devouring decadently rich  chocolate cake !! Everyone deserves a good (maybe oversized ) portion of the above mentioned indulgence Feeling guilty  is almost expected afterwards but what  if we could do  away with it altogether? I mean what if we could eat the cake and show the guilt the exit door . Yes, it is possible..if you bake yourself an eggless butter-less decadent avacado chocolate cake. Avacado in a cake ,you say ? Where do you think the rich decadence  come from ? Addition of the avacado make the texture like carrot cake making it a prime candidate for being a healthy treat . Healthy is what I had in mind while deciding on a cake recipe to bake on the occasion of my father-in-law's 85th birthday . This eggless butter-less fit the bill perfectly . It won many compliments and no one could believe that avacado was one of the ingredients !! Even hubby dearest who also happens to be my most fierce critic gave it a literal "Thumbs Up

Any ardent admirer of my blog will quickly tell you how baking and books (not strictly in that order) are the great passions of my life. Baking soothes me and books give me wings . They may sound opposing forces by my above mentoned description but trust me that I absolutely adore when they combine. Luckily , due to my monthly book club , the coming together of my great passions is  becoming a frequent occurence (as evident from my previous posts). This month , though  , I hit the jackpot !!! Not the  money kind...just recipe in a fiction book kind. Make it "present on the author website" kind but you get the point ..yes? The author in question is Sarah Adler and her recipe of lavender bread won the taste test hands down by my fellow book members. As presumed by the title , healing and magical power of herbs play a essential part in this feel good story about two sisters learning to trust each other in a small town setting with a fair bit of Southern charm thrown

Oh Boy ! Guess who is back ? Yours truly of course !!.If you guys are reading this , then I have been successful in breaking the bloggers block( lot of b words ..I know) though full credit should go to  the lady who stopped me at the hasya kavi sammelan yesterday , introduced herself and mentioned how she enjoyed visiting my blog and trying out the recipes . Needless to say  this conversation  uplifted and inspired me enough to write a new blog post and here I am sharing with you a savory recipe of spinach cake which I made for a book club meeting last month and was an instant hit . Fellow book lovers have asked for the recipe on more than one occasion  and now, I can finally share it. Apologies for the delay but the migraine headaches were winning the battle against my already weakened enthusiasm. Hopefully , the next rounds will all be in my favor for I really hope to share my baking journey with my gentle readers. I did not take a break from baking ..it was just the blogg