Sweet... and the sour Thirteen

So many things happening,and I am combining everything together, My my brother in law got a gift of baked cookies for this Diwali, every year they get a pack of sweets which will be sweet, and this year its something ironic the Cookies(tough it had sweet in it), and the best part is, its we who baked it. I didn't really knew it will end up in all government office for this Diwali as a token of gift from my school.

While pondering on why Cookies this year, rather than some sweets, which was the classical tradition of my school as well as the society,it took just an instance for the answer,its not only the way of being unique but also the price/cost of sweets , which is exaggerating.

Last week I was in Annapoorna Sweets looking at the photograph of Diwali sweets, with Amaravishy, I didn't know that the photograph will deceive you that easily with reality, I took four ladoos with rupees thirteen for each and its , not even an one mouth bite.What to call it, Entrements? or Hors d oeuvre?. That made a real sense why my school gifted Cookies in place of sweet as a substitute.(not the price tough)

The Cookies here is worth mentioning ,taking its name from the Dutch word koekje or koekie which means little cake,Its commonly baked until crisp enough that they remain soft, but some kinds of cookies are not baked at all. Cookies are made in a wide variety of styles, using an array of ingredients including sugars, spices, chocolate, butter, peanut butter, nuts or dried fruits. The softness of the cookie may depend on how long it is baked.With the ranging variety from dropped , pressed, refrigerated molded, bar and sandwiched, one will never say a no to cookie.

Later , which was three days before Diwali, I was all ready for the preparation of our annual ladoos for Diwali, The sleepy eyes after the chicken lunch, judged the quality of syrup with preciseness, and indeed the final consistency is one hundred percent perfect. Looking the frying boondis through a perforated spoon, one would easily forget the tiring legs and the hand of clock. After Six sweet hours of preparation the result counted to almost two hundred ladoos,

The sumptuous and wonderful sweet came out so well, that I would call the ladoo is Amaravishy place as magnificent ,but with the thirteen rupees one,which lacks the basic characteristics of sweet, do not even deserve the place/position to be called a so called sweet.So the next time when I come across a Thirteen rupees sweet(ladoo), I'll just avoid it as the numeral thirteen.

Between the five years

When I was a little boy say around five, every thing which comes out of oven in round crisp consistency is Biscuits to me, I have never come across the word Cookies for another fifteen years. Later in my under graduation during a training time with a popular bakery in Coimbatore, I had my first encounter with cookies, The variety in preparing and the different styles of it made more lavish, I would call it a Sumptuous bake. I practiced the art of rounding the dough and piping the batter for the umpteenth time, forgetting that the measurement is the main soul of baking.Then my twenty year old mind didn't care much about recording the recipe in a written form and... that was then.

Much later, that is after another five years, I had the best opportunity to record the recipe, that was when the tsunami came in Chennai, Unexpected , same like our unexpected time in a very popular bakery in Chennai, Say our work starts at midnight and winds early morning, then the twenty five old mind of mine looked the commercial part of baking, forgetting the inner soul - the measurement.

Today after Five year, witnessing batches of batches of cookies prepared in our department for the Diwali fest, is a kind of nostalgia. wondering what relation between cookies and Diwali, there are too many answers , but the best thing is to keep wondering. We had five varieties of cookies, starting from Choco chip, choco nut, cherry, Masala and the last Salt. Everything has its own character, and texture. I happily saw the students of the final year working with the dough, without any resentment . I saw great master chefs in them , and Wonderful team leaders in them.

wishing them good luck, I pestered them to make note of the measurement, because I don't want them to wait another five days or five years. If measurement seems very complicated , its simple to use the bakers percentage, that will make things easier, to remembered or at least to record.


Bakers percentage = total weight of Ingredient/ total wt of flour X 100

The weight of flour in all the recipe is 100%

For example a recipe calls for
Flour = 200 gms = 200/200X100 = 100 %
sugar= 30 gms = 30/200X100 = 15%
Butter= 50 gms =
salt 10 gms=


more on cookies in the next post..
happy baking,

All is well..

A nine nights and ten day festival, worshiping the Hindu god Shakti is called,The Navratri.and we along with the students celebrated Navratri today as an academic activity.A teaching and learning experience.

Saying all is well, do not turn a curdled milk and I learned that there are more than a couple of excuses when a milk curdles.The menu was Tempered Chick peas (Sundal), Sweet Pongal , (Spinach)Keera Vada , Sweetened Pressed rice, Mashed bananas with jaggery and a Mint sherbat.

The guest was not more than thirty , and we welcomed everyone with the sweet strong mint sherbat, followed by a speech on Navratri and Poojas. "Everything went well" is what the feedback I got,searching the meaning for the word "Everything" , my mind didn't forget that not "All is well" . Sometimes too much hospitality fades or erases the bad taste of food.Here, I am not complaining of the food ,only the sourness in it.

The milk boiling for the pongal tarted curdling, as soon as the rice is added and resulted in a sour sour taste.Later the sourness in the pongal was destroyed by adding melted jaggery and Of-course some Ghee to overcome the flavor of the curdled milk. The frowned faces on the curdled milk turned Grin when the pongal turned sweet, and towards the corner something carried more sourness and more frown.

The something was none other than the grounded dal for vada, the excited chef who was suppose to prepare the vada , soaked the dal last night , say around two am. If only he had knew-ed earlier, that over soaking will end up in sourness, he would have had a good night sleep. The hands of Mr. Manikandan(Classmate & Friend)did as much magic as possible to rectify the sourness, but gave up after comprehending that jaggery is not an ingredient in Vada.(if only jaggerey were an ingredient).


The only option left was to rename the Vada, so that , to do some justification for the sour taste in it, and Mr.Classmate did the naming ceremony, naming it Vilasikpura Vada , because there is no or nothing called as such Vilasikpura. I wondered weather its a bad omen that everything is sounding sour and tasting sour, its like breaking a yukky coconut to Hindu God, where God never feels bad , its we who carry the dilemma(yukky) in heart.

Not to my surprise, I found the last three liters of milk Curdle in front of my eyes, which was on flame for preparing Tea. My angry eyes on the student near the milk pot gave an answer that the vessel was very much clean and no soap water in it, a word from behind me said its too much of heat that made it curdle,a couple of mouths complaining the shopkeeper for the stale milk, and someone inspecting the packing date on the milk packet. But the Milk curdled is Curdled , removing the Letters TEA from the menu card.The function ended with a glass of water to wash down the dishes which the guest consumed.

The three things, The milk for pongal, the sour grounded dal and the milk for TEA, made me ponder , and its not the bad omen its like "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". Thanking Edward Aloysius Murphy for his Murphy's law, I walked back slowly carrying a happy face saying "All is well, if something goes wrong, there is Murphy's to tell".