Harveen's Baking Affair

As I write this blog, it is raining outside. The sound of the pitter patter outside adds to the soothing cadence of the keys of my laptop and transports me to my childhood days when rain did not herald the coming of a migraine but the promise of pure adulterated joy. Like the parched earth, soaked in the downpour, we embraced the rain for it promised general uplifting of spirits in everybody. The daily drudgery was forgotten and out came the karahis for the pakoras. The sound of laughter became more abundant and previously crabby siblings shared your enthusiasm for the latest prank to be enjoyed in the rain. Tea was served and the pakoras disappeared at an alarming rate along with the requests for more ketchup. While I am reminiscing about these golden days, culinary wise it is not the pakoras that tempted me more, rather it was the sweet melt in your mouth-tutti frutti cake slices or fruit cake as we called it back in India. A trip to the bakery was incomplete without pur

There are chocolate cakes and then there is the one pictured above. I think the above picture of the cake is really doing justice and conveying how moist and super spongy it turned out. Sheer heaven on earth. This is a cake that is supposed to make even staunch vanilla cake lovers switch side to the dark side..of...chocolate. Case in point being yours truly and also my friend who is a fresh convert after having tasted it last night. It is a chocolate lovers fantasy that turns out right every single time and is guaranteed to make your receive compliments galore.  I normally bake this one for birthdays or when the chocolate craving hits any member of my family. it is a fairly simple bake and relies upon the richness of real baking chocolate rather than cocoa powder. Any good semi-sweet baking chocolate with cacao percentage of around 60%  should do for the recipe. Addition of sour cream as well ensures that the end product is super moist and decadent.The only thing to be borne in mi

I am a sucker for British mysteries so then why shouldn't the queen of crime -Agatha Christie enjoy the numero uno position in my beloved authors' list. Her being there has much to do with her Belgian detective - Hercule Poirot and his insistence on using those little grey cells. His waxy mustache might also have a part to play too, Anyway, after a year of some heavy reading, when our book club decided on Hercule Poirot's Christmas as our December read, I decided that our Belgian detective not only deserved a cake of his own but a whole party dedicated to him.  As such, our book club meeting for that month turned into a Book Club Christmas Mystery Party. That was the event invite that was sent to the members and the response was enthusiastic, a fact not surprising considering majority of them share my love for the somewhat vain Belgian detective. Most of us have grown up reading Christie and share a fondness for her which got us into the right spirit of things and