About some cake creations
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”― Mark Twain
My grandfather liked to chew tobbacco in a the form of a little package
containing betel nut (also called areca nut), and herbs and spices spices wrapped
in a betel leaf termed as “paan”. He had a beautifully hand carved silver box
called a “paan daan” with little compartments for all the paan
ingredients. He gave a similar box to my
Mom when she got married and I inherited it from her. She never chewed paan so the box and its
compartments are in pristine condition, never having been in contact with
chemicals or herbs and spices.
Paan-daan is silverware that was very popular in South
Asia during the 19th century. It was carried around by everyone and played a
serious role in socialization ceremonies of that time. In those days, betel
leaf and its seeds were also consumed by field workers and other rural inhabitants
to suppress their hunger as it has a mild painkilling effects similar to a
narcotic.
Today I used my mother’s silver paan-daan as an
inspiration for this cake. It is a
carrot nut cake with cream cheese filling.
I covered it with silver leaf. The
handle was especially fun to make.
The Owl House is an American animated fantasy television series on Disney Channel. The fantasy structure and details were fun to make. What a cute house! It is home of some interesting characters in the show.
Places of residence is not necessarily a home; the home is a physical space as well as an emotional and psychological relationship, where memory, comfort, activity and familiarity are some many important factors in the construction of home. Home will always be the place for which we feel the deepest comfort and affection. I love traveling, but I always enjoy coming home to the familiar feel, comfort, smell of my home. I always look forward to just let myself fall into my own bed. Then the time to reflect and collect my thoughts about the time away from home.
It was a yellow cake with strawberry filling.
Home is where the heart is. Pliny the Elder
Swan Lake is a fabulous Russian ballet. The last time I saw it was in an amazing theater in St Petersburg, Russia a few years ago. This swan cake is in commemoration of great memories of the days of carefree travels. Hoping for traveling again, soon.
The cake was fun to make. It is an almond cake with
almond mascarpone filling. The feathers were made of white chocolate. Yum!
“His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and
disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a
duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched
from a swan's egg.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Ugly Duckling
Everybody knows Scrabble, that board game, where you draw
seven lettered tiles from a bag and make words on the board. Scrabble was
conceived during the Great Depression by an unemployed New York architect named
Alfred Mosher Butts, who figured Americans could use a bit of distraction
during the bleak economic times. Butts named his game Lexico,
then changed the name to Criss-Cross Words. His friend and eventual business
partner James Brunot came up with the name Scrabble in the late 1930s. A lot of
scrabble-friendly new words have since been introduced in the latest
dictionaries, such as qi, vu, ew, cinq, qaid etc.
Love this game! I play every day, but not on a board. The
apps of today allow gaming on the go and with people all over the world. I
would not play it competitively but I think the exercise of making words keeps
our brain sharp.
This is an almond cake with cannoli filling. The structure was easy to make but the lines
on the board did not come out as straight as I would have liked. Then I printed
the colored squares on edible paper and cut them of size before placing on the
cake.
Peacock cake was fun to make, but it was not that much
of a challenge since I carved the peacock with fondant and gum paste. So the
peacock is not made of cake, but is perched on a strawberry cake with chocolate
ganache filling. I have been wanting to make a peacock for a while. What a
beautiful creature!
We have all marveled at the colorful iridescent
plumage of peacocks, especially when proudly fanned out. The functions of the elaborate iridescent
coloration and large train of peacocks have been the subject of extensive
scientific debate. Charles Darwin suggested that they serve to attract females.
More recently, Amotz Zahavi proposed that these features act as honest
signals of the males' fitness, since less-fit males would be disadvantaged by
the difficulty of surviving with such large and conspicuous structures.
Did you know that peacocks are social birds, but very aggressive towards invaders of their territories; they even have snake fighting abilities. They often play together, especially under the sunlight. In the wild peacocks usually travel in groups of up to 10 peacocks. Peacocks are one of the loudest animals on earth, calling out to each other during the morning and late evening. They make meowing sounds when it is going to rain. They also make alarm calls when they sense danger. Male peacocks sing to attract female peacocks. How cool is that?
"It is Allah Who has made for you the earth as a resting place, and the sky as a canopy, and has given you shape - and made your shapes beautiful and has provided for you Sustenance..."
(Al Quran--Gafir 40:64)
This is a little drum (dholak) is a two-headed hand
drum; a folk percussion instrument. It is so fun to play it to celebrate at
auspicious occasions like weddings. This little dholak is carrot nut cake with
cream cheese filling.
Celebrations are especially precious after the
interesting year of 2020 isolation. Indeed there is so much to be thankful-- the
flowers have bloomed, the birds are singing, the sun is shining—let’s celebrate
it! We are alive and breathing —let’s celebrate it! Lets celebrate the splendor of this world, look
for it inside ourselves. Lets play this drum and celebrate a new day that is
full of possibilities.
