Someday I shall write a food memoir and call it “The Occasional Baker”. That sounds almost fancy and almost masks the inevitable truth that I only bake on Christmas holidays. Or when mom is around to volunteer and share the load of vigorously mixing cake batter.
Now, fair point, I’ve been baking for over a decade now. But that was all BS. Don’t get on your high horse; I meant Before Smartphone. The era after has been, er, rather challenging – because just how do you manage to bake your cake and eat it too while clicking some quick cake-fies and fishing out the best filters while at it?
If you figure it out before next Christmas, please give me a shout out. I will be found buried underneath cake batter that I couldn’t use because I ruined it while trying to make too many Instagram stories.
To ensure that all future nephews and nieces can learn from and not emulate my mistakes, I have documented my night for posterity. (Please don’t take pictures. That’s the sort of thing that leads straight to a burnt cake.)
Thoughts:
1. Have I got everything? The basics? Flour, eggs, milk. What about fancier shiz like bicarbonate of soda (which is just baking soda), icing sugar and a spatula? Check? Check.
2. This, right here, is the perfect beginning to a three-part Instagram story – the beginning, the madness, the goodness. (Will edit out the madness in Valencia. Everything looks good in Valencia.)
3. The first photo is taken while I mix in dry ingredients. This is easy peasy.
4. Stir. Stir. Stir. Add the stuff that makes it look gooey and chocolatey – all that cocoa and milk, and sample a taste.
5. Wait. WHAT.
6. Something does NOT taste right. Is it supposed to taste – beany?
7. I’m sniffing everything I’ve used so far and checking expiration dates. I can’t die from eating a Christmas cake!
8. (This maida (flour) smells suspiciously similar to my cake batter. Shall we sample a taste?)
9. Mother of all Christmas ornaments, that’s besan (gram flour)! I’ve poured an exact “1 cup and 3/4ths of a second cup” of BESAN into my cake mix! Why? WHY? Why do bad things happen to good people?!
10. Pick up phone again. Google “what happens if I use besan instead of maida in my cake?”
(Here’s an actual screenshot) –
Panic screenshot. Check.
(Photo: Urmi Bhattacheryya/The Quint)
11. Oh good, lots of responses. “Garbanzo bean flour” as the videsis call it, actually is a legit substitute for maida in cakes – provided you’re cool with it tasting a little bit like beans.
12. I’m cool.
13. I’m just glad I didn’t use talcum powder.
14. Note to self: please put down the phone – are you seriously going to document this monumental mistake??
15. Of course not. But we shall, instead, take a photograph that features you licking your cake spoon like it’s delicious and made from regular old maida and not from besan that you accidentally added in because you were too busy taking 3-second videos of cake batter for your social media audience.
Here’s a photograph that features me licking my cake spoon like it’s delicious and made from regular old maida and not from besan that I accidentally added in.
(Photo: Urmi Bhattacheryya/The Quint)
16. Two portions of cake batter have been made. Imma put the first one in and set it to 30 minutes exactly like it says in the recipe blog.
17. (Monitoring… monitoring…) Mom usually hovers around the microwave to keep checking the Christmas cake at periodic intervals.
18. I have to go stream a Christmas movie on Netflix so I’m properly Christmassed up before this thing comes out.
19. Polar Express is so riveting, even for the 117th time.
20. (Wait. Those are strange fumes emanating from the kitchen.)
21. *Opens microwave door. My cake is burnt to a crisp!
22. Note to self: DO NOT follow recipe blogs to the T. Listen to your mother. Mother knows best. (I should have monitored at periodic intervals instead of streaming Polar Express to have intelligent conversations with myself about how Tom Hanks can act in anything.)
23. Second cake is put into the microwave amid tears and after cleaning up burnt black crisps.
24. I am watching it like a mother (hen? Hawk?). I’m just watching it like my mother.
25. This one’s fine. Phew. (It’s actually kind of tasty! Who knew besan cakes were a thing? Don’t tell me you did; that’d mean I panicked for nothing.)
26. Next time, I’ll bake the old-fashioned way – with nothing to offer my social audience. I think I’ll live.
Merry Christmas, ya’ll!
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