Somewhere over the rainbow

I don’t know one single girl who hasn’t been fascinated by rainbows since she was a child…you remember ‘My Little Pony’? It used to be my most favourite set of dolls to play with, Barbie and Ken most often bagging the award for ‘Most Overrated Doll.’ So yeah where was I? My Little Ponies usually came in all colours of the rainbow and had adorable names like Cotton Candy and the like.

While cleaning out the attic recently, I rediscovered my old bag of forgotten treasures, everything I used to cherish and love as a kid (I even found an empty pack of Phantom Sweet Cigarettes BTW!) and much to my surprise, my adorable ponies and glowworms were intact. They now occupy pride of place in my cupboard.

A very, very dear friend’s baby girl is turning one this Thursday and Zuzu baby (her real name is Zoya) loves these dolls as much as I do. Now apart from getting her a couple of these as a birthday gift (yes, there is an elaborate party planned, replete with a Jungle theme), I plan on making some rainbow coloured cupcakes for her birthday. While it may not be a patch on the delicious “Ten kg Chocolate Fantasy Photoprint Cake” that The French Loaf is making for her (It’s got an adorable print of ‘The Lion King’ on it and my god, the cake is to die for!) , I have decided to give it a shot anyway…  

RAINBOW CUPCAKES|

You will need:

·         175g butter

·         175g granulated sugar

·         175g plain flour, sifted

·         3 eggs

·         1 tsp baking powder

·         1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

·         1 lemon, juiced and zested

·         Food colouring in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple

For the frosting:

·         100g cream cheese

·         30g butter

·         400g icing sugar, sifted

·         Hundreds and thousands to decorate

METHOD: Make the cake mixture following whatever method you normally use. I recommend, as always, the all-in-one; place the eggs, sugar, butter and flour (all at room temperature) in a large bowl, along with the baking powder and bicarb, and mix using an electric hand whisk until combined. Add the lemon juice and zest, and mix again. Divide this mixture equally into 6 bowls and tint each a different colour of the rainbow.

Line a 12-bun muffin tin with paper wrappers, and add a teaspoon of each colour to each liner in reverse rainbow order. That's purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. (Clarity is important in recipes, after all.) Bake for about 20 minutes at 180°C, until a toothpick inserted into the centre of one of the cakes comes out clean. Cool on a rack. DO NOT COOL IN THE TIN unless you want soggy cupcakes.

Make the icing: mix the softened butter with the cream cheese, and then add the sugar. You might not need it all - stop at the consistency you like. I like it thick and shiny, so add it all. Use the icing to frost the cakes - a palate knife makes pretty swirls. Finish with hundreds and thousands, and remember: less is more. You want the cupcakes to look sweet and innocent, so that the rainbow is a surprise.

Aamchi Mumbai!

They say Mumbai changes you forever; the sights, sounds, smells, people, pick-pockets…everything is an integral experience that makes this place ‘Maximum City.’ Born in Mumbai, but a true blue south Indian at heart, I much prefer my ‘thayir sadham’ to the ‘aloo gobi, gobi aloo, paneer butter masala’ category. That being said, my heart skips a beat and my tongue starts drooling when I think of Mumbai street food/junk food.

Yeah! Bring on the chaats, pile on the vada pav and serve me some piping hot channa bhatura please! But sigh! In a city where chaat is most commonly thought of as a form of communication (think ‘chat’) between young boys and girls, it is not very often that one can find an authentic place that rustles up this kind of food with ease.

And then I discovered Kailash Parbat .Yes, yes, It’s the famed Mumbaiyya chaat place that I have loved and longed for in namma Chennai. Nestled in a quiet corner on Harrington road, Kailash Parbat (KP as I now fondly call it) is your one stop shop for all things tangy, masaledar and yummy. We started off with the crispy corn basket – plump niblets of corn sitting pretty on a bed of tomatoes, onions, a sea of spices and papdi. Topped with crisp sev, a squeeze of lime and multitudinous chutneys, it set the mood for things to come.

Next on the menu was a delightful sizzler, surprisingly authentic and tasty for a chaat place, with generous portions of chilli paneer, vegetable Manchurian, hakka noodles, rice, fries and so much more! But the piece de resistance was the heavenly cheese channa bhatura. With creamy cheese that oozes out of a crisp golden bhatura, spicy and piquant channa, a pickled mirchi and some salted onions, could one genuinely want more?

Well, I did and so with much reluctance, my colleague agreed, and I smiled in glee as the steward brought on the kulfi falooda. There is something really childishly exciting about eating a dessert that possibly has all colours of the rainbow; what’s more, it was delicious too! Supremely satiated and thankful that I was not wearing ‘fitting’ clothes, we walked out of Kailash Parbat with a promise to come back for more. And all this while, my head was singing…yeh hai Mumbai meri jaan!