April 2016 – Bijal Vachharajani

Bake an aamras cheesecake this weekend

Posted on April 23, 2016October 27, 2023 by bijalv

“It’s never been this hot at this time of the year,” said Settu, one of the farmers who is part of the Samalpatti Mango Growers Association. We were walking around a mango orchard in Samalpatti in Krishnagiri, in the heart of totapuri mango growing landscape. Raw mangoes hung temptingly from trees across the countryside. We snacked on slices of raw mangoes daubed generously with paprika, salt, and lashings of jaggery and talked about the future of this precious fruit. The relentless heat is of concern to the smallholder mango farmers when it comes to yields, but they are also hopeful. Mainly because they are no longer isolated smallholder farmers tackling problems of climate change, pest proliferation, and market fluctuations. Rather, they operate as a unit.

mango-farm

In 2009, 91 farmers from the region came together to form the SMGA co-operative and got themselves Fairtrade certified. Which means they get a minimum price for their mangoes, despite market fluctuations and an additional premium on what has been sold on Fairtrade terms. Their mango pulp is now being exported to European market, and it’s a source of pride for the community.

So far, the farmers have invested the premium money in fish water ponds as an additional source of income – mangos are biennial yielding crops – and a primary school in their village. It’s a story of promise, of climate adaptation, and the power of the collective.

I came back home and decided I needed to bake with mango. And not just mango, it had to be aamras, because you know, there’s nothing like pure mango pureé. So I baked a cheesecake, stirred some aamras into it, and even topped it with that. There’s also nothing like too much mango. I used The Kitchn’s recipe on my friend Aditya Raghavan’s recommendation, and adapted it slightly. I would recommend reading through their recipe because it goes into a lot of details, which comes in handy when baking a cheesecake. It’s not difficult, but it’s got short, fiddly steps.

Ingredients
Adapted from The Kitchn.

For the crust
170g- Ginger biscuits
5tbsp- Butter

For the cheesecake
900g- Cream cheese (room temperature)
1 cup- Sugar
1 tbsp- Corn flour (optional)
A pinch salt
½ cup- Greek yogurt or hung curd
1 tsp- Vanilla extract
3- Large free range eggs
1- Large free range egg yolk
Pulp of 2 mangoes

For the topping
3 to 4- Mangoes

Method
For the crust
*Grease a springform pan (10”). Now put the pan on two diagonally placed strips of aluminum foil and cover it on all sides. This is to stop water from entering the pan while baking it.

*Preheat the oven to 350F/ 180C.

*Blitz the ginger biscuits in a mixer.

*Mix in melted butter until it clumps together.

*Spread the mixture on the bottom of the pan, use the bottom of a steel bowl to even it out.

*Bake for eight minutes until the crust starts to brown.

*Let it cool.

For the cheesecake filling
*Using a hand-held mixer, whisk the cream cheese, sugar, corn flour and salt until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Make sure all the cream cheese lumps have evened out.

*Add the yoghurt and vanilla and beat again.

*Beat in the eggs one at a time.

*Give a last stir with a spatula.

*Mix in the mango pulp.

*Pour it on top of the biscuit layer.

Baking the cheesecake
*Cheesecakes have to be baked in a water bath.

*So place your pan into a larger baking dish.

*Boil water and pour into the baking dish, making sure no water falls into the cheesecake.

*Fill an inch of the pan with the water.

*Bake at 350F/180C for an hour.

*You know the cheesecake is done when it’s slightly puffed and set and a little bit wobbly in the centre.

*If you see cracks forming, then stop immediately.

*Switch off the oven and leave the door open a crack.

*Cool for about an hour.

*Now bring the cheesecake out and remove the foil.

*Run a knife around the cake’s edge to make sure it doesn’t stick to the sides of the pan.

*Cool completely and then freeze for at least five hours.

Cheesecake topping
*Peel the mangoes and blitz them to a fine pureé. Top the cheesecake with the aamras and serve immediately.

– See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/food-wine/bake-a-totapuri-aamras-cheesecake-this-weekend-2767077/#sthash.C2CpXiuC.dpuf mango-farm

Gaming apps for Earth Day

Posted on April 20, 2016October 27, 2023 by bijalv

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/entertainment/gaming-apps-for-earth-day/article8497301.ece

Angry Birds is back, and the birds are angrier than ever. Their wrath, this time around, is being put to good use for the planet. It’s Earth Day on April 22, and for ten days, Apple has an entire section on the App Store called Apps for Earth. It will be a shot in the arm for the environment movement in the form of 27 apps, where children and adults can safeguard wildlife, conserve forests, support sustainable food, preserve oceans, protect fresh water, and combat climate change.

But back to the irate avians: in Angry Birds 2, there are messages about protecting our oceans where players have to stop those annoying piggies from overfishing. Another gaming app, Cooking Dash, offers a menu with sustainable ingredients, a change from its usual steak-and-fries combination, while there are energy-generating turbines in Jurassic World: The Game. And SimCity BuildIt has three new features on forest, energy, and water. Even Candy Crush Soda Saga has joined the fray with a live in-game event called Bamboo Hill. Basically, as they put it, “have fun helping the planet.”

It’s a savvy fundraising drive: proceeds from in-app purchases will go to World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Considering that many children are growing up surrounded by screens, it is a smart idea to get them to think about conservation while playing games. Of course, how many games will translate into real action, if any, remains to be seen. That said, after the ten days are up, these apps will most probably return to business as usual. It would be interesting to see how many of these companies will continue to incorporate green messages beyond the token Earth Day promotion.

However, there are plenty of other green games online. PBS Kids has a website called Meet the Greens, where children can watch animated videos and calculate their carbon footprint based on their travel, food, consumption, and waste behaviour. There are games where young players can think about upcycling clothes, efficient lighting, learn trivia and get quizzed on green know-how.

If your children love The Magic School Bus series, then head to their microsite on Scholastic’s webpage for match the animal to its habitat puzzles, science experiments, and trivia. Then there’s British Council’s LearnEnglishKids website, which has an environment section packed with songs about Lisa the Lemur, flashcards, games, and stories.

For older children, there’s Don’t Flood the Fidgits!, which I must confess isn’t as easy as it looks. Players can choose to build flood-safe cities on an island, river, or peninsula, where you work with a budget and a population goal. As you build one city, it gets flooded and you realise you need to add trees, storm walls, and drainage for better cities. The simulation game gets young adults to explore environmental design, understanding engineering, green housing, and ecological landscapes. If they love cooking and gardening, get them to play 3rd World Farmer, an online simulation game about farming in developing countries. Players need to farm sustainably in the midst of droughts, market fluctuations and diseases. Hint: permaculture comes to the rescue.

After all, children are going to spend time online, it’s not a bad idea to nudge them towards gaming that encourages to think about conservation, try their hand at eco-design challenges, and have fun while doing it.

Bijal Vachharajani writes about education for sustainable development, conservation, and food security. She’s the former editor of Time Out Bengaluru.

Simply Nanju is a poignant book to help children understand disability

Posted on April 19, 2016October 27, 2023 by bijalv

Zainab Suleiman’s writing stems from her work with different NGOs and special schools.

http://www.dailyo.in/arts/childrens-books-zainab-sulaiman-simply-nanju-differently-abled-duckbill-poverty-disability/story/1/10152.html

The motley crew of Nanju and his classmates have to be some of the most adorable characters in children’s literature in the recent past. Zainab Sulaiman’s Simply Nanju starts with the ten-year-old boy poking his head out of a bathroom stall, worried that someone will find out that he’s soiled his school shorts once again.

Nanju was born with a spinal defect and as a result, he is relentlessly teased about his crooked walk. Nanju, we discover, has pressing concerns that demand his immediate attention at his school, where other children are also differently abled. His classmates suspect him of stealing the topper’s books, there’s a bully to contend with, and on top of that, his father is constantly threatening to send him off to a hostel far away. What follows is a mystery and a school story rolled into one, with everyday heroes as protagonists.

Sulaiman first wrote a grain of the story at a Duckbill writing workshop. “Zainab was one of the participants in a Duckbill workshop in Chennai, where one of the group exercises she had done was a detective story set in a school for kids with special needs,” said Sayoni Basu, director and primary platypus at Duckbill Books. “Afterwards, discussing what she wanted to write, she said that she worked as a special educator and she wanted to write about some of the kids she worked with. Which we thought was a wonderful idea.”

Sulaiman’s book stems from her work – she has been teaching, fund-raising and volunteering with different NGOs and special schools. “I’d been working as a volunteer teacher at an integrated school and everyday I’d practically float out of there, high on the energy generated by a bunch of kids who lived life to the hilt in spite of many of them being severely disabled,” said Sulaiman.

“I began to scribble down things I’d heard, make notes on the hard life many of these kids lived without any display of complaint or self-pity, and mainly how it all made me feel: angry, sad, amazed, overwhelmed. And that’s when I realised I had to write about this world.”

Smply Nanju joins an array of books that help children understand disability. Tulika Books has also published a range of picture books – Why are You Afraid to Hold my Hand? by Sheila Dhar is about attitudes and how people react to someone who is differently-abled, Wings to Fly by Sowmya Rajendran and Arun Kumar where little Malathi finds that she can do a “much, much more” even though she’s wheelchair-bound, and in Tharini Viswanath and Nancy Raj’s tale Catch that Cat!, Nancy doesn’t let her being in a wheelchair stop her from helping a cat stranded on a tree.

Karadi Tales, with its audio book format, is often used as an educational tool for children with learning disabilities. Few years ago, Shaili Sathyu directed Barsoraam Dhadaake Se, a play that was an adaptation of Kalpana Swaminathan’s story, Bangles for Bansode. The cranky old landlord, Bansode, finds that his life changes for the better when a wheelchair-bound girl comes to live in the building.

Stories like these go a long way in creating inclusive spaces, making children comfortable with diversity, and accepting of the fact that everyone is different in their own way.

Sulaiman’s characters come in all shapes, sizes, and shades of blacks, whites, greys, reds, blues and all sorts of happy and gloomy colours. Nanju’s friend, Mahesh, for instance, is really intelligent and uses logic to solve problems. Nanju himself is not all angelic – he’s quick to judge and can be quite sharp at times.

Sulaiman paints a poignant childhood, full of that sense of inadequacy and that particular sinking feeling when you get poor marks. It’s a familiar world of favourite and not-so-favourite teachers, ever-shifting rivalries and fast friendships and shiny compass boxes and new backpacks. All of this in the backdrop of challenges of social inequality and abuse. Not an easy task.

“It was hard,” said Sulaiman. “I was torn between writing a really hard-hitting book which showed how relentless the double whammy of poverty and disability can be, and writing about how inspite of all their hardships, these children really live for the day and are determined to extract every last ounce of joy from it. I choose the latter as I thought it was important for people to realise that it’s us who need to change, and maybe we could change if we realised how much these kids are like us.”

Stories like these are distinctive in the sense of being representative and going beyond the upper middle-class protagonists often seen in children’s books. “Urban kids live largely in middle-class ghettos, where they have little interaction with anyone outside their immediate social group, in a world which regards the ‘other’ with suspicion,” said Basu. “It is, therefore, all the more important that they read about Indian kids who live very different lives, since it is through fiction that we develop empathy and understanding of worlds which are different from our daily experience.”

Duckbill, over the last few years, have definitely hopped (or do platypus’ waddle?) off the beaten path. Rather than the usual lineup of authors and mythological stories, their books have LGBT themes, swashbuckling historical heroines, and differently abled heroes. Their writing workshops have helped them find new and exciting writing as well.

“Our goal has always been to publish books that reflect the contemporary world that Indian children and young adults live in,” said Basu. “And ideally, the books should be funny and wacky.” Simply Nanju checks the boxes.

Make pizza from scratch, in an air fryer if you please

Posted on April 19, 2016October 27, 2023 by bijalv

Years ago, when we took our American cousins for pizza in Mumbai, they were quite stumped by the Udupi pizza, a plump circle of dough, tomato sauce, capsicum-onions-tomatoes, and oodles of Amul cheese grated on top. The younger cousin politely asked the server for his cheese to be melted. The bemused server insisted that this was melted. We finally moved dinner to Pizzeria in Churchgate, where they happily noted the stringy, gooey cheese and nodded their satisfaction.

I was listening to the BBC Food podcast recently where I discovered the difference between Neapolitan pizza and the Sicilian one. The first one has few ingredients, thin crust that almost folds over while eating, while the Sicilian one is thicker with lots of toppings. Of course, they didn’t include our homegrown Udupi pizza in it.

But, there’s something about handmade dough, fresh tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese baked in a wood-fired oven. Once you’ve tried that pizza, it’s impossible to eat those hyper-processed pizzas that are over salted with cardboard-like dough and cheese that tastes of nothing. Homemade pizza, for most of us, is buying readymade bases from the shop and baking it with tomato puree and cheese.

Almost a year ago, my British friend Deborah taught me how to make pizza from scratch. The dough recipe comes from one of my favourite chefs ever – Jamie Oliver. And then we tinkered around with different toppings. This pizza is so easy that it’s become a weekend staple at my home. I usually substitute most of the maida for whole wheat flour, and so far, no one has been the wiser.

Also, my oven conked in the middle (THE HORRORS) of all this baking and as a 13-year-old told me, this pizza bakes perfectly well in the air fryer. And it does.

Pizza (Adapted from Jamie Oliver)

Ingredients
For the dough
400g- Maida (I use half maida and half whole wheat flour)
A fistful of semolina/ rava
½ tbsp- Sea salt
7g- Ddried yeast
½ tbsp- Caster sugar (normal granulated sugar works fine)
325ml- Lukewarm water

For the sauce
If you’re using tomato sauce
1 tsp- Olive oil
¼ tsp- Ajwain
2 cloves- Crushed garlic
4 to 5- Basil leaves
½ tsp- Chilli flakes
2- Chopped tomatoes
Salt to taste

If you’re using pesto sauce
1 bundle- Basil leaves
A handful- Walnuts
2 cloves- Garlic
1/8 cup- Grated parmesan cheese
1 glug- Olive oil
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

For the toppings
Mozzarella cheese- get one that you can tear into hunks
A drizzle of olive oil
Sea salt to taste
A few basil leaves

Method
* You can warm the water in the microwave or stove for 10 seconds. It needs to be lukewarm, not hot.

* Add yeast and sugar and mix vigorously with a fork. Leave it aside for a few minutes. Listen to the yeast – if it makes a humming sound, you know it’s active.

* Most active dry yeasts in India that you find in retail stores aren’t that effective. Look for the ones with small granules or get fresh yeast, which you can then store in the freezer.

* Mix flour and salt and make a well in the centre. Add the yeast water mixture and use a fork to mix it into the flour.

* Once it starts to come together, tip the batter onto a floured surface and start kneading the dough.

* There’s a trick to pizza dough – you need to push the dough away from you with one one hand, and at the same time, stretch it towards you with the other hand. Keep doing this for 10 minutes – I set a timer – until you get a smooth dough. It looks messy but don’t be tempted to add too much flour to the dough.

* Grease a bowl with olive oil and put the dough inside it. Drizzle some olive oil on top as well. Cover with a kitchen towel and let it sit for 45 minutes. The dough should double in size.

To make the pizza pies
* What I usually do is follow Jamie Oliver’s instructions. So I cut the dough in half and wrap half of it in cling wrap and stick it in the freezer to use for another day.

* The other half, I divide into four balls, dust them and cover them in plastic and let them sit for 15 minutes.

* Roll out some of the dough until it’s 0.5cm thick. You can do it on your kitchen platform, or if you’re making mini pizzas then on your rolling board.

* Dust parchment paper with rava, and put the rolled pizza dough on it. Brush it with olive oil.

* When it comes to toppings, I like to stay Neapolitan – the lesser the better.

For tomato sauce
* Heat 1 tsp olive oil in a pan, add ajwain, crushed garlic, basil leaves, chilli flakes, salt and chopped tomatoes and sauté.

* I use the paav bhaji crushing tool to mash this into a sauce. I am not a big fan of dried oregano, so I add caraway seeds or ajwain instead – they taste quite similar.

For Pesto sauce
* In a blender, blitz basil leaves, walnuts, salt, pepper, and garlic cloves.

* Add parmesan and olive oil and mix.

Putting the pizza pie together
* Once your dough is rolled out and ready, spread the tomato sauce on top or pesto, right until the edges. If you’re using pesto, then sauté some 3-4 cloves of garlic in oil, cut them into small pieces and stud the pizza base with the garlic pieces.

* If you’re using tomato sauce, add slices of mozzarella cheese and basil leaves.

* Drizzle with some olive oil and salt.

* Place in the oven to bake.

* These pizzas cook in a hot oven – 250 degrees C/ 500 degrees F in seven to 10 minutes.

– See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/food-wine/make-pizza-from-scratch-in-an-air-fryer-if-you-please-foodie/#sthash.0P5uKsAx.dpuf

Bake a mountain of chocolate fudge this weekend

Posted on April 19, 2016October 27, 2023 by bijalv

Throw in nuts, grate some orange zest into it or just add some Cadbury’s Gems to it – it’ll be gone before you know it anyway.

In August 2014, a chapter from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which had been edited out of the first edition, was published for the world to read. In what was meant to be the fifth chapter, Willy Wonka leads the children into the Vanilla Fudge Room. Here’s what it said – “In the centre of the room there was an actual mountain, a colossal jagged mountain as high as a five-storey building, and the whole thing was made of pale-brown, creamy, vanilla fudge.”

All I could think of was breaking off chunks of this towering vanilla fudge mountain, dunking them into the chocolate river and gobbling it up quickly. Of course, it would have meant severe punishment at the hands of the Oompa Loompas, like becoming a Fudge Sludge or something equally terrifying like Cornelius Fudge (for the uninitiated, that’s the former Minister of Magic in the Harry Potter series)

And so, it’s simpler to make your own creamy chocolate fudge, and especially with a no-fuss recipe like this one. I got my fudge recipe from a friend ages ago, which I have tweaked and changed around since. Use good quality dark chocolate when making fudge because it really is the star here. When I travel, I end up buying organic and fair trade chocolate as well, mainly for fudge and cookies. As the chocolate melts with the condensed milk and butter, it becomes a thick river of molten chocolate that would make Willy Wonka very proud. And the smell will drive everyone into the kitchen – be warned, it’s really hard to keep the fudge safe from greedy, prying fingers.

It’s such a versatile recipe that you can throw in nuts or keep them out, or add orange zest or swap the vanilla for a drop of orange blossom water. My nephew tops each square with a Cadbury’s Gems roundel because he claims it’s prettier that way. Whatever you try, the result is still a glistening slab of fudge, dense and gooey at the same time.

Once the fudge is ready, you can cut it into squares and put them into little reusable mason jars to gift to friends as well. I have even chopped it up coarsely and served it as Cockroach Cluster at a Harry Potter themed party. Most of my friends prefer this fudge to a bottle of wine. Or actually, with the bottle.

Ingredients
60 to 70- Gramunsalted butter (this recipe works fine with salted butter, but then omit the pinch of salt)
¼ cup- Brown sugar
½ tin or 200g- Condensed milk
½ tsp- Vanilla extract
½ cup- Dark chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup- Toasted, chopped walnuts or almonds or raisins
A pinch salt

Method
*Grease a shallow rectangle-shaped pan and keep aside.

*Melt butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan on medium heat. Add brown sugar.

*Once the sugar dissolves, it forms a sort of crystalline broth at the bottom of the pan.

*Add the condensed milk and stir constantly till it becomes a smooth paste.

*Now add the chopped chocolate and continue to stir.

*Once the chocolate melts, keep stirring until the mixture reduces by a quarter.

*Add salt and the chopped nuts and continue to stir another three minutes.

*Remove from heat and add vanilla extract.

*Pour the mixture into the greased pan and let it cool.

*Leave it overnight to set or at least for six hours.

*Don’t refrigerate the fudge.

*Cut into pieces and well, let the Oompa Loompas stew as you eat the fudge.

*Best served with a cup of piping hot coffee or cold milk.

– See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/food-wine/bake-a-mountain-of-chocolate-fudge-this-weekend/#sthash.p2DeZJC9.dpuf

Negotiating the in-betweens

Posted on April 6, 2016October 27, 2023 by bijalv

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/entertainment/article8439992.ece
Alex Gino’s book George starts with its eponymous protagonist poring over fashion magazines. The fourth grader reads about make-up, even though she’s never worn it but tries to imagine herself with a slash of lipstick. George, we find out, doesn’t like her name much, preferring to think of herself as Melissa. She also wants to play Charlotte in the school play, but it’s looking impossible. Her brother teases her, saying she’s got girls on her mind. She does, only not in the way her brother thinks. That’s because George is a boy who actually identifies himself as a girl.

George is one of the slew of international books that gently explain the confusion and discrimination transgender people face. These books reinforce the fact that gender is something children learn from social conditioning – their parents, peers, schools define what it means to be a boy or a girl. And when a child like George strongly feels he is a girl, he finds himself alienated, bullied viciously at school. George is nothing but a mere reflection of real life.

Recently, I came across India’s Youth Speak Out About Higher Education, a report prepared by UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) to Support Ministry of Human Resources Development’s 2015 Revision of the National Education Policy. The report included 44 transgender respondents and the findings were telling. The data suggested that “bias about gender and sexuality is, unfortunately, common in Indian higher education, and must be addressed”. As many as 85 per cent of the transgender respondents had never been enrolled in an institution of higher education. The reasons were multifarious, ranging from family constraints, and social unrest at their native places, to lack of financial support. Some dropped out after they felt they weren’t accepted by their peers.

In 2014, the HRD Ministry advised all States and Union Territories (except J&K) to include “third gender” children as part of the socially and educationally backward classes for admission under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. Yet, apart from reservation, there’s a lot that needs to be addressed to makes schools and colleges more inclusive for transgender students.

In the focus group discussions conducted by the UNESCO MGIEP, students of all genders agreed that on campus, those who were transgender and/or sexual minorities were bullied. One transgender student from the east mentioned in the report that he dropped out because the campus climate was too hostile. He said, “I had to face harassment in college because of my gender identity… Whenever they would see me, they identified themselves as ‘straight’. They would completely ignore me. In the three years of college, I went for the first one-and-a-half years because of attendance. After that, I didn’t go. I didn’t have friends. I didn’t have anyone to share things with.”

The fictional George’s best friend, Kelly, on the other hand, is more accepting. And that makes a world of a difference for George. It’s the same for David Piper, the protagonist of Lisa Williamson’s book, The Art of Being Normal . His two best friends couldn’t care less, unlike most of his school mates. Both books are written with sensitivity and a keen perception about young adults and children struggling to understand gender identity.

Then there’s How to be a Girl , a podcast where a single mum documents life with her six-year-old transgender daughter. The audio-series is heart-wrenching as it attempts “to sort out just what it means to be a girl”. At the age of three, we hear the toddler beg his mum to fix the mistake and put him back to being a girl. The mother is confused and distraught but supportive. That kind of family support is rare. In Presentation of Gender Dysphoria: A perspective from Eastern India , Debmalya Sanyal and Anirban Majumder studied “the clinical, biochemical profile, personality characteristics and family support of GID subjects”. Their findings revealed that it is difficult for transgender people “to express their sexual identity in family or in society” – only 10.96 per cent had their family’s support. Their conclusion states that “social taboo and lack of informative, family support [led] to delayed medical consultation and have accounted for complexities in presentation indicating a huge need for awareness programmes.”

The UNESCO MGIEP report outlines recommendations on making higher education campuses more inclusive. Suggestions included orientation sessions and mandatory course modules to sensitise students, faculty and administration about gender and sexuality from the primary school level, faculty training, privacy protection, counselling, and infrastructure such as gender-neutral toilets. In George , one of the things George hates is the boys’ bathroom. “It was the worst room in the school… the whole room was about being a boy…”

Books like George and The Art of Being Normal are few and far between. They are powerful stories with well-etched characters. These stories help children feel it’s okay to be different, and as Gino puts it, it’s okay to “be who you are”.

How to make these cake pops that are a hit with the kids

Posted on April 1, 2016October 27, 2023 by bijalv

http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/food-wine/express-recipes-chocolate-cake-pops-kids-foodie/#sthash.v5odNlWt.dpuf

It was meant to be a Victoria sponge – that classic British vanilla cake that is sandwiched with jam and whipped cream. But a few minutes after my sponge cake batter went into the oven, the electricity once again went off. I watched helplessly as my cake — which was happily swelling with pride — sank like a punctured balloon. I took the cake out of the oven – it wasn’t bad, just sunk, making it unpresentable in its current avatar. Usually, I would have cut it up into pieces and no one would have been the wiser. But I had to take the cake for a Harry Potter-themed party the next day, and now I had no dessert. Disaster with a capital D.

After I hopped around my house, shaking my fist at the electricity board for a while, I calmed down enough to head to Bakerella’s website for her cake pop tips. Bakerella, aka Angie Dudley, made these delectable desserts famous with some of her innovative decoration ideas. Cake balls are basically cake mixed with frosting and rolled into balls and dipped into a chocolate or candy coating. Add a skewer to it, and it becomes a cake pop. Ice spooky eyes onto them and they become Halloween treats, or ice on a pair of spectacles and a scar and they become perfect for a Potter party. Cake pops are so much fun.I didn’t have skewers or toothpicks – it was just one of those days! So, I rummaged through my baking cupboard and found a box of hagelslag, Dutch chocolate sprinkles. I rolled half the the cake balls onto the sprinkles (you can get kids to help), and happily dubbed the creation Cockroach Clusters. In case you are wondering, that’s straight out of a Harry Potter book. The other half I refrigerated and served cold.

The fabulous thing about these pops is the versatility. You can dip them into white chocolate or dark, use candy melts to coat them, ice them or leave them plain, use chocolate or vanilla cake. It doesn’t matter. They are still perfectly gobble-able. As one of the teenagers at the party told me, “These are the best chocolate whatevers’ I have ever had.” I will take that as high praise.

cake pops process1_759 The process (clockwise from top-left): 1. Crumble the sponge cake slowly; 2. Keep mixing frosting with cake crumbs until you can shape the dough into balls that will hold their shape; 3. Melt the chocolate along with the butter, taking care to not overheat the chocolate as it will harden; 4. Dip skewers into chocolate and insert into cake balls if you’re making cake pops; 5. Roll the cake balls in sprinkles when the chocolate layer is still wet.Cake Pops
Serving: 35 nos

Ingredients
1 – sponge cake (I used Delia Smith’s recipe, but any will do)
200g – Dark chocolate, used for cooking
25g – Butter
1/4 tsp – Vanilla extract
Block of Styrofoam or a dhokla steamer (the round one with holes)

For the vanilla frosting
1/2 cup – Unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cup – Icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp – Vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp – Milk

Method
* Crumble the cake with your fingers into a mixing bowl. Work slowly until you have even, fine crumbs. You can use a food processor if you like. You can cut off the crust of the cake if it’s too hard, but honestly, it crumbles fine, unless it’s a burnt cake.

Prepare the frosting
* Using a hand blender or stand mixer, beat the butter until very smooth. You can do this by hand, but it takes ages.
* Add the vanilla extract.
* Reduce the speed of the mixer and add sugar, a little at a time. Sifting the sugar in advance means there will be no lumps.
* Beat for 5 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy. You can add some milk if you need to give it a slightly softer consistency.

* Spoon in the frosting, a little at a time, into the cake crumble.
* Keep mixing until you can shape the dough into balls that will hold their shape. If you add all of the frosting at once, it will become soggy. Instead, add little at a time and the rest you can save for frosting the cake pops if you wish.
* Shape the dough into ping-pong sized balls. I made two sizes, one small and the other slightly larger so that they could become hefty cockroach clusters.
* Place the cake balls on a shallow tin, lined with baking paper. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour. Two hours is better. This ensures that the balls retain their shape. (Note: At this point the cake balls can be frozen for later use. But if you plan to make them a day or a few hours in advance, then avoid freezing them as they may crack.)
* On a double boiler — put a pan with water to boil and place a thick-bottomed pan on top of it in such a way that it doesn’t touch the water – melt the chocolate along with the butter. Be very careful at this stage. Overheat the chocolate and it will harden unattractively. What I do is when the chocolate has almost melted, I remove it from the heat and beat the rest of the lumps into the sauce.
* Add a few drops of vanilla extract.
* Transfer the chocolate to a deep bowl and cool slightly.
* Meanwhile, remove the cake balls and let them thaw slightly. If you’re making cake pops, insert the skewers at this stage. Remember to insert them only halfway through.
* Now, dip the cake balls into the chocolate. Don’t roll them or else they will get an uneven texture of the chocolate. Just turn them to get an even coating and let the extra chocolate drain off. Stick them onto the Styrofoam block or, like I saw someone do online, into the holes of the dhokla steamer. Basically, use something that will prop them up. If you’re making cake balls, then use a spoon to dip them and place them on a baking paper.
* If you plan to add sprinkles, now’s the time to roll the pops onto the sprinkles, while the chocolate is still wet. Once the chocolate hardens, you can keep them at room temperature or pop the extra ones into the refrigerator. I doubt you will have any leftovers.

Month: April 2016

Zainab Suleiman’s writing stems from her work with different NGOs and special schools.