Easy-Bake Cake

Are you a September-born kid? Or do you have some September-born family member? Then here’s a cake you can bake for hardly Rs 100/kg; whereas, bought cakes cost you Rs 450/kg. Besides, you can avoid all that sinful butter icing and retain space in your tummies for some savouries. These also need not be calorie-loaded. Think Dhokla, Akki Roti, Poha, and Low-cheese Pizza. These will appear next in my blog.


Why did I embark on this health-food fad? I’m a diabetic, who childishly maintained my supreme right to eat the roses off the birthday cakes. Dr J would warn me, but that only made me more adamant! Then the one argument to end all arguments happened. I limped home in the slush, over the potholes, and my shoes pinched like hell. I tried open shoes, closed shoes, keds, slippers – I really hobbled like an old lady. People in buses started getting up to give me their seats. The conductor called me “Ajji”. I shouted back, “Ajjinnu illa, bajjinnu illa!” My hobbling had to go. I didn’t want gangrene, my toes amputated, and so on. After tossing and turning all night with my extremely tingly, numb toes, I reached a decision. No more Parle G biscuits from the cafeteria! I was consuming 5 in the morning and 5 in the evening. Each contains 18 calories. That was 180 needless calories all actively contributing to my tingling feet.


So here goes! This is a basic chocolate sponge, not for diabetics but for the demanding families of diabetics! Else, they’ll go to the nearest Sweet Chariot and bring the Black Forest.

Ingredients required:

6 ounces (180 gms) maida

6 ounces butter (I use fresh cream instead)

6 ounces sugar (you can use sugar-free granules also)

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla essence (Bush essence is the best, this is to take away the egg smell)

3 teaspoons baking powder

3 tablespoons cocoa powder (optional)

Mix all the ingredients together in a big mixing bowl. Do not use a whisk. Do the whisking manually with a wooden spatula for 5 minutes.

Prepare a cake tin of diameter 8 inches by spreading a thin film of oil all over the bottom and the sides of the tin. Then take a tablespoon of dry maida and swish it around in the greasy tin. The maida forms a coating on the bottom and sides of the tin.

Now take the batter and spoon in 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder (NOT drinking chocolate!) and fold that into it. Beat that in till the batter is smooth. You can add some instant coffee powder if you want a coffee taste – maybe 3 teaspoonfuls of it.

Pour this batter into the prepared cake tin. Put it into the baking oven (Mine is a round Bajaj oven 20 years old, with no temperature settings!)

Bake it for 40 to 45 minutes.

How do you know that it is done?

The cat will come in mewing and sniffing, followed by the kids.

Poke a knitting needle through the holes on top of the oven. If the needle comes out with bits of underdone cake stuck on it, you know it needs more baking. If it comes out smooth and clean, your cake is done.

Remove the lid of the oven, but keep the whole apparatus well away from the cat, perhaps in the meat safe (or koondu).

When the cake has cooled down, slide a butter knife around the circumference and ease out the cake onto a plate. If the family and other animals ask for icing, just squeeze some Hershey’s chocolate syrup on it! If it’s just a bit bitter, that’s good, that’s how designer chocolate cakes and coffee cakes taste! But even the cat will not object to a bit of bitterness.

If you want to make this into an orange sponge, and not a chocolate sponge, do the following:

Forget the cocoa, the Hershey’s syrup, and the instant coffee powder.

Slice the cake horizontally into two thick round halves of a “sandwich”. Spread some orange marmalade on the cut surfaces. Close up that sandwich. Prick the top of the cake with a fork. Pour some orange juice over the top and serve.

The Colours of Humanity

“Oiii! Hari! What do you think you are doing? Come back here this minute!” I shouted at the little five-year-old boy with blue jeans, a red sweatshirt, and brownish curly hair. He did not listen – pretended not to! He tried clambering on to the boat that took tourists around on the artificial canal that ran around Chester Zoo. We had already had a round in the boat; fed bread to the lovely ducks swimming along with the boat; and admired the animals at the periphery of the zoo. The little one in the pram was not yet a year old. She dozed off and on, snug in her little pink anorak. And Dilip – he was busy photographing the birds and animals there. The gardens were beautiful, with flowers of all colours spilling over. We were entranced by the flaming colours of the flamingoes. The giraffes, hippopotamuses, penguins, and zebras – in short, all the animals – seemed quite happy, as they had large open spaces to ruminate in. What caught my attention was the brown striped animal – the Dobra – a cross between a zebra and a donkey. I loved his long ears and snoozy expression. He could have been a striped Eeyore (of Winnie-the-Pooh fame) come to life!


It was time to break for lunch. I had to take the baby to the baby-changing room as well. We don’t change the babies there. We change their bottom thingies. This Hari! As usual he was doing “pyjama”. This was a phrase we coined at home. We used it to describe his directionless, sometimes over-the-top hyperactivity. Its origin was a funny Hindi idiom – “Tum aadmi ho ya pajama?” – are you a man or a pair of pyjamas? Well he did flop around like a pair of pyjamas without a man in them! He was doing much “pyjama” to get his toe into that boat. Oh no! He’ll fall into that water! Horrendous Hari!

I marched up to him, preparing to drag him back unceremoniously. “He’s mine!” shouted a black lady. I looked at her angrily. What the hell was she talking about? She had a white ginger-haired partner and they were heading towards Hari. Hey! Hang on! “That’s mine!”

The boy turned around – wheatish brown skin like Hari, same height, same dancing curls, same missing teeth, same “pyjama” behaviour! He was not Hari. Hari had brown eyes; this one had blue. The curl in front of his forehead was tinged with ginger. Amazing – I could have sworn he was Hari, but he was a product of two different races and cultures, neither of which were mine!

I turned back with the pram and the baby, puzzled and worried.

And guess what – Hari and his Dad were standing a few feet away and laughing at me!