The Story of an Apple Cake

I’ve recently fallen in love with the Blueberry Muffin & the Apple Cake at Barista. They’re soft, moist, have just the right amount of sweetness & best of all, they’re free of the calories of chocolate pastries you get at coffee shops. I’m sure they’re laden with butter but let’s just let them be, shall we?

I’ve been craving a Blueberry Muffin or an Apple Cake almost every day for the past couple of weeks, so I decided to make an apple cake at home yesterday evening. Headed straight to Lake Market after work to pick up apples & ground cinnamon. The rest of the ingredients were at home.

I spent more than an hour mixing the ingredients & beating the batter before popping it in the microwave, yet the apple cake came out dry & harder than a cookie!! I know what mistakes I made but I was heartbroken nonetheless, not to mention that my craving got intensified.

For those who care, here’s the recipe for an apple cake:

Apples – Peeled, cored & chopped
All purpose flour (maida) – 3 cups
Butter or vegetable oil (You can use either but butter will obviously enhance the taste) – 2 cups
Eggs - 3
White sugar – 1 ½ cups
Ground cinnamon – 1 tsp
Baking soda – 1 tsp
Vanilla Essence – 2 tsp
Walnuts – chopped (optional)

Sift all purpose flour, baking soda & ground cinnamon together. Beat the eggs, add sugar till it dissolves. Gradually stir in the flour while beating continuously. Pour in the butter, keep beating. Add baking vanilla essence, apples & walnuts. Pour into a pan (that you can pop into the micro) smeared with butter. Bake!

You will get this...


(Photo courtesy: The Home Executive)

I promise yours will turn out better than mine, just don’t skimp on the butter, or OD on the flour or baking soda!!


P.S.: I used to think Gwyneth Paltrow & Chris Martin were really crazy for having named their daughter 'Apple'. While I still wonder what they were thinking when they named her that, I think 'Apple' is a pretty cute name for a kid. Though I'm not sure I would've felt the same way if I were named that, or she will when she grows up!!

Chicken Stew for the Dieting Soul

I just got off the GM Diet (more on that later), and having decided that I positively do NOT want the weight I shrugged off to find its way back to my tummy, I got this chicken stew recipe from my sister’s mother-in-law who is a Bengali.

It’s healthy & comforting (like all soups) without being watery & bland – things generally associated with stews. The recipe is pretty simple too. You would need:

• Bay leaves
• All spice (i.e. garam masala) – Whole
• Cloves
• Salt & pepper
• Boneless chicken cubes
• Onions – Sliced
• Tomatoes – Chopped
• Ginger – Grated
• Veggies – Beans, carrots, peas. The Bengali version includes potatoes & papaya (raw I think) but we’re in a low carb zone, so we don’t like potatoes J As for papaya, I’d rather think of it as a fruit & not a vegetable. I guess you could also add other veggies of your choice such as cabbage, mushrooms etc.
• Cornflour

I’m not a stickler for measurements, and I guess seasoned cooks would have a better idea about them than me. Here’s how you can make it:

Lightly sauté bay leaves, all spice, cloves & grated ginger in a teaspoon of oil. I used olive oil but you can use cooking oil too. Or butter if you’re not counting calories :)

Add sliced onions, sauté till they turn brownish in color but don’t make them sweat. Add chopped tomatoes. After a few minutes, dump the veggies & chicken cubes (they need not be boiled), add salt & cook for sometime. Then add sufficient water, a bit of cornflour (dissolved in water) & bring the stew to a boil. Once it boils, put the lid on & simmer till the chicken & veggies are cooked and the stew has attained the desired consistency. Sprinkle black pepper powder (as desired) right before getting it off the stove & serve hot.

Voila! It’s that easy!

A New Found Appreciation for Food

It's a rainy Saturday morning and I have nothing to do...nowhere to be! It's heavenly!

I'm sipping on my morning ginger tea - my life force! I can't function fully without my morning tea.

The weather is awesome and I really want to write, but I don't have anything particular to write about. So, I'll write about the evil influence that The Knife has had on me.

I consider it an "evil" influence because I was never one for cooking. Until I started reading his blog.

I used to detest cooking...considered it "burning of one's time" in the literal sense of the word. I never understood how people could think of painfully chopping vegetables and standing in front of the gas range for hours as means of de-stressing!

However, ever since I started reading The Knife's blog, I have started experimenting with cooking. Not the dal-chawal type of everyday cooking but more exotic weekend cooking - Italian, Spanish, French, Thai, Mediterranean cooking.

Almost every weekend I’m cooking something and inflicting it upon A & my sister. And if their feedback is to be believed, I’m pretty decent at it :)

I hunt online for recipes during the week so I can make something new over the weekend. Sometimes I pick recipes from The Knife’s blog because they are practical and easy to follow.

Ever since I’ve gone on the GM Diet, all I can think about is food! I dream of food. Yesterday was the ‘chicken & tomatoes’ day. I was way bored to eat boiled chicken & raw sliced tomatoes all day, so I got a little experimental with Italian herbs and came up with this delicious chicken preparation that had all of 1 tsp of olive oil in it! So here’s what you’ve got to do :

Take skinned boneless chicken breast (or leg pieces if you find chicken breast too chewy). Grate tomatoes and marinate the chicken in the pulp for half an hour. Add salt, pepper, chopped fresh basil & parsley, dried oregano (though keep oregano to a minimum because it can overpower the taste of all other herbs) & red chilly flakes.

Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a pressure cooker and sautee crushed garlic in it. Once the garlic turns brown, add the chicken along with the marinade, shut the lid on the pressure cooker and let it cook for 3-4 whistles or until the chicken is fully cooked. You wouldn’t need to add water as the tomato pulp is enough. You can then remove the lid from the cooker and let the gravy dry up a bit. This can be served with garlic bread.

This chicken dish is easy to prepare and tastes good even though it isn't loaded on calories.

In a way, this weekend is going to be really sad. I associate weekends with good food and eating out, but my diet doesn't allow me to. I have 2 more days left to go and can already see my plate of spaghetti carbonara screaming out to me! Get that plate of ham & bacon with spaghetti in a cheese sauce ready, babe :)