Tag: chocolate

Categories
Hobbies

The food channel comes home!


Having spent two nights in a hospital room with a poor WiFi signal, needles piercing my arms and eating some rather bland food, coming home was a heavenly feeling.

The hospital wasn’t all that bad. For starters, atleast we didn’t have to cook, or worry about household chores. Then there was a large TV – a device we have chosen not to include in our house. After all, who needs another screen and another monthly subscription for something we neither have time nor inclination to watch. So there we were in that homely room switching between food and science channels for pretty much all our waking hours. I have to say it had a little bit of an impact on me.

I’m not really a foodie. I know lots of people who are – they know which is the best place to eat in pretty much any part of town; what is the speciality of those food joints; and are even willing to travel a fair distance just to taste that one flavour which has the perfect contrast of textures and smells. For me, all that is Greek and Latin. But after a prolonged exposure to the micro waves of the TV shows, I decided to turn into a chef for a while.

The recipe – a tower of biscuits layered with creamy chocolate and dunked in coffee – was one my mother had been wanting to try out for long.

I took pictures along the way and noted down all the steps – detailing everything a TV chef would likely mention. Taking pictures meant that it took us four times the time it would normally take to make this sweet.

This week, Jen Hooks asked bloggers where their heart is. Right now, it is set on devouring this delicious piece of home-made tower of biscuits!

The tower of biscuits

To see how other bloggers interpreted this week’s photo challenge, head over to the Daily Post.

For those who are interested, here’s the recipe:

  1. Whip some milk cream with chocolate sauce.
  2. Add cornflour and heat the mixture over low flame, stirring constantly, till it thickens into a smooth paste.
  3. Spread the mixture over 6 Marie biscuits and place them one on top of the other.
  4. Cover the tower with an extra biscuit and press lightly.
  5. Pour coffee decoction over the tower, ensuring that the biscuits are fully soaked. Drain the excess coffee and place it in the freezer.
  6. Remove it after about half an hour, or till it becomes stable. It should be soft and have the consistency of cake. Make sure it does not freeze completely, or it will be nearly impossible to eat it!
  7. Serve as is, or sliced.
  8. Consume immediately – we did not keep it to test its shelf life 😉
Categories
Miscellaneous

WPC: Oops!


Oops! We were a little messy with the chocolate sauce. Normally, I would apologise for the poor quality of the photograph. But since the Daily Post specifically asks us to share photographic (and/or photogenic) disasters,  I won’t 😉
dripping_choco

More chocolaty images from this series in the archives: Death by Chocolate.

Have a sweet weekend!

Categories
Hobbies

Gift


chocolate
Cute little gift

A little student in my mother’s class brought a gift for her. There was no occasion. But it was out of sheer love for her teacher. As is always the case with us, we admired the packaging more than the content 🙂

Categories
Stories

Death by chocolate!


A sweet entry
Large Candy at the exit of Chennai Airport

Being late December, it was no surprise to see Christmas Trees decorating the airports of Delhi and Chennai. But I should have known the large candy sticks at the exit of Chennai Airport were more than just festive decorations – they were a sign of things to come!

We ate out almost everyday. And for every meal there was dessert! Adirsam, Mysore pak, Jangiri, Badusha, Kesari and many types of Payasams accompanied the traditional meals.  We tried out the local soan papdi sold by a street vendor in Mylapore. And ice cream at the beach was a must.

One particular day, we had a double doze of chocolate. One of the desserts was a sizzling brownie, topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, at Haven Sampoorna. The other was ‘Death by chocolate’ at Tangerine.

It was hard to resist the temptation to dig into these beauties. And after eating, I couldn’t help but wish for more! There never really can be enough of chocolate, can there? 😉

This dessert is to die for 😉
Chocolate Brownie Sizzler with Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce
Now you see it
Now you don’t! There’s still some chocolate sauce though. No, we didn’t finish it!
Categories
Stories

Recipe for Disaster – Part 2

Chocolate Cake

Crack an egg

Chocolate Cake
I was about four years old, and it was the festival of holi. Standing in the balcony of an apartment on the ninth floor, I watched my brother drop water balloons on passers by… While we hadn’t technically collaborated on it, by virtue of standing there, and watching with delight, I considered myself partner in crime!

But as far as collaborative work was concerned, there was virtually only the one time – when I messed up the surprise for our parents’ anniversary.

After the ‘bucket fiasco‘, we didn’t plan anything together. Whatever special we did end up doing, was independent of each other.

Once my brother bought a couple of beautiful key-chains for our parents’ anniversary. It was supposed to be on behalf of both of us, but I had no knowledge of it whatsoever. Another time, I made a greeting card on behalf of the two of us, without involving him.

Eventually, when we grew up*, we became too busy with our own lives. We fought lesser with each other. We became more civil and our conversations attained more intellectual tones.**

Every year was more or less the same. A day, or a week before our parents’ anniversary, we’d discuss for a brief moment what it was that we were doing. And then we’d agree to a bucket of flowers. While our mother baked a cake, we were generally quite lazy and our patience lasted only as long as the time it took for the cake to come out of the oven.

And so it happened that on the twenty fifth wedding anniversary of our parents, we spent the day at home, and devoured freshly baked chocolate cake. Our laziness, and refusal to collaborate with each other meant that we contributed absolutely nothing towards the celebration of a milestone.

One Year Later

I had just finished my high-school. And my brother had just completed his post graduation. We were both at home, relaxing after our exams.

The conversation began, as it had the past several years. “Amma and Appa’s anniversary is coming.”

And for once, in our lives, we read each other’s mind. We had messed up a golden opportunity of making their silver jubilee a special day. We had to do something. Something which was truly memorable.

And so we came up with a plan. Our plan was so grand, it needed quite a bit of ground work.

* whether we grew up or not is debatable
** add salt to taste!

Image Credit : Chocolate Cake Public Domain