Happiness Baked in Steam

 When a cakeoholic meets a chocolate cake, a lifelong romance begins. YY
 

I always look for an occasion to visit a Bakery and feed the spirit of confectionery growing brassy in me with each passing day. Came the New year and pangs of cake savouring started hitting me hard.But this time I didn't want to go for a market-baked cake as always and then placate my stomach to digest the unhygienic piece. Since it's new year ,so I set the resolution to eat hand-baked cake only. Now for a girl like me always staying at an inch from the kitchen, the baking seemed a herculean task and that too without Mom's help (She resolved not to help me in my debut cooking ).The absence of oven from our kitchen exacerbated my already helpless condition. This was an unavowed challenge from my Mom which I had to win anyhow. I kick-started towards the kitchen to show my amateur culinary art. As I embarked on the baking - project, I saw a number of speed bumps coming in my way.

Obstacles

1. No ingredient in the store.

2. No magazine to refer for the recipe.

3. No oven for baking.

4. No helping hand.

 

The Battle Begins

 

The only saviour GOOGLE-baba came to my rescue (but this time it's for the kitchen project). I hurriedly googled for the cake recipe. The search results showed up with numerous links. But all asked to bake the cake in oven in one of the steps of their recipe. I filtered the search with the tag, Bake eggless cake without oven. This time the search brought out some good links. I rushed to a few of them to note down the ingredients first. The english links said Plain Flour as one of the ingredients. Now What the hell plain flour is?? The flour(used to make chappatis) is always plain and not any concoction. So I filtered my search with an additional tag of "In Hindi " to the title.

Finally I landed onto a site telling me in hindi how to bake without oven. The chef has recommended the use of a pressure cooker. I found it quite relieving to eventually get the entire procedure ( as in my Lab experiments) listed step-by-step.
Finally cake mil gaya

 Now with the information collected , I headed for the market to get all the ingredients. The list was as follows:

1. Baking powder.

2. Plain flour ( maida, Finally I got to understand :P )

3. Sugar ( already found in the kitchen, needn't to buy it)

4. Butter

 5. Aluminium Foil ( not available in my kitchen )
 

Now when I went to the market and asked for the stuff. The shopkeeper provided all except the baking powder and said, " Baking powder to nahi hain, Baking soda chalega?? ".

I was puzzled what to do whether to abide by the online chef's recipe or go with the Jugaad technique. I stared the shopkeeper with a quizzing look and after a while said, " Acha rehne dijiye. Aage se le lungi." He packed the other and handed over to me.

I looked for the Baking powder at a few more shops but it was my Luckiest Day, so none of them had in the store. While I trudged through the street , the chemistry gyaan pinged me. Baking powder is Sodium Bicarbonate needed to make the cake fluffy with the release of carbon-di-oxide. So may be in the usual lingo, they are calling it Baking Soda. 'Baking' is common in both (words) so I should buy it. :P kuch bhi ho, hai to baking hii ( Difference between baking powder and baking soda)

I went back and bought the soda.

Coming back to the home, I puffed myself in front of my Mom on successful completion of Part-I. She chuckled under her shawl. I went ahead to accomplish my project.

Modus Operandi

I put all the ingredients in a bowl and battered them untill the mixture became a bit fluffy and devoid of any lumps. I didn't abided by the exact procedure set out by chef. Afterall I'm not going to present the cake to Kate Middleton .:P It has to be consumed by me and a little turn away won't restrict the carbon dioxide from escaping :D So, I was ready with the mixture. I put a little water in the pressure cooker and allowed it to heat up. Meanwhile, I cut wide the biscuit wrapper and spread it upside down ( from inside it looks like aluminium foil only :P ) in the steel bowl ( no aluminium bowl and was not allowed to buy one , so another jugaad ). I removed the whistle of the cooker and closed it.
Afte 20 minutes I checked the stuff with a knife. It didn't stick.
Hurray!!! I baked the cake.
Hot cake!!
Mouth watering!!

I took out the bowl, cut out a piece , spread the melted Dairymilk silk over it and garnished with some butter and clicked !!! (First pic is to be recorded for history, cake ki muhdikhai )

And my tongue was ready to savour the my-cooker-made-cake. And I gulped a hot bite.
Hmm, it tasted like a sweet dhokla with khaman-like perforations making it look like a perfect cake. Keeping aside the little-bit-distorted-taste, my first cake gathered lots of praise and I am too happy to eat it. Now I dream of participating in Ultimate Cake Off after mastering this art.
Till then Happy Baking!!

J J J