Victoria Sponge Cake

Ok, I spent the past weekend baking - orange flavoured victoria sponge cake. Baked twice. Y loved it! So, here's how I went about it,

Ingredients:

• 1 : 1 : 1 proportion of Maida (all purpose floor, I guess) : Butter : Sugar. I used the measure of 1 cup. [Don't think it was a good idea - cos that caused more butter to be used I think. Using actual weight measures should be better]
• 2 eggs + 1 tsp vanilla essence ( I made it with 3 eggs as well - not able to grok the difference yet)
• 2/3 tsp of baking powder. 1/8 tsp of salt. Mix in maida. Sieve.
• Grated skin of fresh orange. Just a teaspoon.
• Some warm milk in a cup. Just for final mixing to get the consistency.

Basic Tips:

• Butter should be @ room temperature
• Sugar is powdered sugar. I scooped out 2 or 3 tsps of the cup - helps reduce the sweetness. (The first cake was too sweet.)
• Pre-heat the oven. @ 180 C. Have both the upper & lower coils on while preheating. It should be the symbol '==' in your preset settings.
• Keep a large mixing bowl, a spatula, a wooden spoon handy.
• Grease the cake pan with butter, dust with maida and keep aside. Idea is to pop the cake in as soon as it's mixed and ready.

Steps:

• Cream the butter in the bowl first. Use a wooden spoon. Do this till the butter is a smooth creamy fluffy paste
• Add the sugar and continue the mixing. The mix should be a smooth creamy & fluffy mixture
• Now beat eggs with the vanilla essence.
• Add 1 tsp of the beaten eggs at a time into the sugar/butter mix. The idea is to avoid curdling the sugar/butter mix. This is very important and the hardest step of cake making. Mix thoroughly till the egg is blended in completely.
• When all of the egg is mixed into the butter/sugar mix, then its time to add the floor.
• First, mix in the grated orange rind into the flour.
• Now - remove the wooden spoon from the mixing bowl. Time to use the spatula or a broad knife.
• Pour in the flour. use the spatula to gently mix in the flour in folding movements. Here the idea is to not lose the air we have built in the creamy mix. The air is what aids a well risen cake.
• Add enough milk in the end and continue gently mixing. The consistency should be such that when lifted, the batter should just fall from the spatula.
• Pour this mixture into the greased pan/bowl.
• Now reduce the setting to heat from the lower coil, the symbol "__" on the settings.
• Pop in the oven. Bake for 35 minutes. [The best way to check is - after 30 minutes, open the over and insert a thin knife or a toothpick into the cake. If it comes clean, then the cake is done.]
• The final 3 - 5 mins, change the settings to "==" to get the browning on the cake top. This should be done only if the cake hasn't browned already.

Raajneeti - my 2 paise!

OK... Raajneeti is over hyped. Its not a great movie. Doesnt measure up to Jha's other movies such as Gangaajal.

In fact Raajneeti is a not-so-well-made bhelpuri of Godfather and Mahabharata. An american mafia saga mixed in with an indian epic!

But I must say it - the movie's unlikely star is Raajneeti's Sonny - Arjun Rampal! He is simply great in the movie and has done a brilliant job.

The movie belongs to Manoj Bajpai and Arjun Rampal. Nana Patekar and Ajay Devgan have sleep walked through their roles. Katrina Kaif was good in spots and Ranbir Kapoor is OK.

But the hype around the movie being a great story, well made movie etc was a bit too much for me... so thought I would throw in my view as well! :)

Its a good movie and it has ridden to greater success on the failure of Kite! Dunno how to explain it - but its a above-average hindi movie to hit the screens after a long time. No wonder its raked in the moolah! But its not a great movie... its just a hype wave everyone's caught up in!

But Arjun Rampal is fantastic!

Defying Gravity.... 2009 -> 2010

Am back to blog about the year past and the year forward. Been thinking about and around this post a bit.

In a blog, you tend to be careful with your words, sound appropriately humble and optimistic. As of now, this is an audience-free blog. I guess, I might as well go ahead and jot down the twirly things in my head as they twirl! Optimism be damned!

So, the typical way to approach the year end blogs, I suppose, is to write up the good things, the bad and hopes for the future. True to form, it is taking a lot of effort to think of the good things. And I realize that what I recall as good has a tint of sad to it. On the same lines - perhaps whats not so great also has a tint of good ( not that I can spot it in the long shadows cast ).

Recession loomed large early in the year and I desperately wanted out of the then current team. Some tears, prayers and effort later I moved to oss. It was a good thing. Began with a blockbuster policy launch - a job well done but not as completely as I would like. This was almost mid year when it happened. Interesting insights into gravity again - ability to scale not being a strong point.

Niece 2 was born. Saw her actually drop into the world. A speechless and numbing experience. I still don't know what to make of what I felt. Then I saw her gender and remember the nervousness I felt about what the in-laws would say and so on. So birth tinged with social anxieties. Then came the care-giving. Daily supply of food to the sister - in the face of the mom-freeze. Then the eruption of jealousy from mom - when she saw that her stint in hospital for niece 1 was laced with familial neglect.

Bitter taste in the mouth - the whole episode. Saw sis grit her teeth and complete her due stay and run as soon as possible. Bitter bitter bitter.

Work wise, then started the lull - the inability to take off, think big, start projects. Gravity. Saw what team I was a part of - and that set me deeper in stone - immobile.

Personal front has also been a lull - status quo. Disenchantment with the Mother - constant reminders of the gifts from the womb. The glorification of mediocrity. Gravity.

Disenchantment with VJ - a long standing friendship that just lost some sheen over the year.

And so much illness around. Aged by a year. Mortal and vulnerable.

Nothing specific to write home about except for a plus year. Many resolutions made and promptly forgotten.

Infuriating lethargy - mental and physical. The gravity of justification. Cocooned in comfort zones. Explaining away to self. Dull aches, pain in the head. Gathering moss.

The recent part of the year has been bad. Work has been hell - what with being exposed to manic bouts of managers, weirdness of colleagues - first time in all work life.

So much of illness and death around.

A deep sense of loneliness, a desire for a deep bond of friendship has been gnawing away at me.

The one thing that keeps cropping up is - GRAVITY.

I remember a friend from another lifetime saying that a person should have "the wings of an eagle and the roots of a tree" or some such. That phrase creates a mental image of status quo and tearing insides.

My prayer and wish for myself is - to un-root myself and defy gravity.

Christmas and holidays.... & condolences

Merry X'Mas World.

Its been a great break from work. I am already in my 7th day of vacation today and have another 9 days to go. Me purrrrrrrrrring with pleasure every now and then.

I guess I will be back with a year gone by post sometime next week - the highs, the lows.

But the past couple of months haven't been great...and X'mas began on a sad note last evening.

Wanted to say a prayer for Inder uncle who passed on yesterday after a 10 month battle with cancer. My prayers and condolences for the family - especially S aunty.

I have always known him as S aunty's husband. A very dashing and smart man - who had charmed aunty in a whirlwind romance and quick wedding 40 years ago!

Aunty loves him deeply and completely. Through their ups and downs as a family, the love has been intact. I can feel it in her words and saw it in their togetherness. And that speaks a lot for uncle.

I think the world of aunty and she thought the world of him. Frankly, just that puts him right up there in my books.

He was a retired officer from the army and still led a very active life working for a company till he fell ill. He was a brave man who fought the brutal onslaught of cancer with the even more brutal sessions of chemotherapy.

Y and I met them at their home when uncle was back after one of the earlier stints at the hospital - on Ganesha pooja day. Uncle and aunty were watching a movie and relaxed at home. We gave them home-made kadabu and chatted for a while.

My last mental images of uncle is will be of that evening and of him on the night of K's wedding reception.

I will remember uncle always as a strong, dignified and gracious man. Rest in peace, uncle.

PS: Lotsa cancer around. Y's dad's been diagnosed too. As I keep talking and listening, almost every family has an incident. Sigh.

Touch or Click and increase font size.

From the time I have started using the iPhone, my reading on my mobile has increased. In fact, over the weekends, I dont even take the trouble of opening my laptop at all for my casual reading and surfing.

One absolutely cool feature is the ability to increase font size or maximize the frame which is being read with a finger touch.

I am so spoilt by the feature that I have started wishing for the same in my browser on the laptop - IE or firefox anyone...

Sigh.

Maggi Stories

Apparently, Maggi noodles has been around in India for 25 years now! Really? Has it been so long now? I still remember listening to the jingle "maggi maggi!" Wow! There have been many other instant noodles but none that came close to denting Maggi's brand. Top Ramen was close - but I guess it never displaced Maggi.

They have come out with this cute series of adverts about people's Maggi stories. It got Y and me thinking...

My maggi story has been a non-story, actually. :) Mum never liked Maggi. And I distinctly remember her making/flopping maggi once in Osborne road apartments ( wow that was when I was pre-13 ! Its really 25 years now! ). And she never made it again.

Over the years, I discovered and really loved eating noodles. My freind Rosh's mum would make excellent Chinese style noodles with Keema, veggies etc. So I embarked upon the Chinese 'ishtyle" in my noodles journey.

But I DO have my Maggi story - but its rather recent. Its all the absolutely yummy combinations Y conjures up when I am too lazy to cook and we still need to eat. It helped that Maggi kept up with the times - offering whole wheat options. Otherwise Y would have steered clear of the noodles.

Maggi has helped us have many a tasty tangy piping hot one-meal dinners. With lots of added veggies, tomatoes and chillies. Yum-yumma-yum-yum!

Happy 25 years Maggi in India - and many more too! :)

Happy Birthday Samyu!

Today is my little niece's birthday! Not so little - she is a little lady of 6 years today!

Time flies. I still remember when I first laid my eyes on her - about 6 hours or so after she was born. I will never ever forget how I felt when I saw that little bundle of life fast asleep with her, nose slightly twitching held up by my mother. All those phrases - "Weak in the knees", "Maternal instinct", "family bonds", "blood ties" - all of it completely made sense and applied to me.

Tears of love, joy and gratitude just flowed down my eyes. I remember being so grateful to have experienced these feelings!

Oh, I love her so so so much. Words cant begin to express what I feel for my niece. And today she is 6 years old! On her way to her 1st standard / 1st grade! :)

Happy Birthday, Samyu Mari! :))