MADRAS MASALA COOKIE

Something spicy and familiar, after the wacky cookie and pink cupcakes.Something that has an India connect.

A cookie, like the masala cookie that I used to buy from Leeja Bakery, Trivandrum, seemed perfect. This definitely had to be the true Indian cookie with Indian spices, green chilly and ajjwain(carrom seeds). 
Abhinav was looking almost cross at the idea. " I can't eat spice". He could see that I wanted to make these and soon changed his statement. "This cookie will be the cookie for diabetic folks like ammama and appapa. With lots of spice and no sugar at all! I'll roll and cut, OK?"
I wanted them to be basic round cookies like I would buy from the local bakery.
What are we calling it?
I felt 'Madras Masala' has a nice ring to it.

This is simple to make and a great one for tea time.

MADRAS MASALA COOKIE

Makes 20 cookies

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter 

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon of ginger paste 

4 chopped green chilies ( or more)

1/4 cup yogurt

Curry leaves chopped ( anything from 5 to ten curry leaves... if you like them )

1/4 cup of Carrom seeds / Ajjwain (or less.They lend a distinct flavor and also make the cookies look beautiful)

A pinch of salt

All generally refrigerated ingredients to be brought to room temperature before you begin.

DIRECTIONS:

Mix /beat all ingredients together with a spoon or using a beater( paddle attachment for making dough)

Roll out and cut into 1/4" thick rounds.

Bake at 180° c for 15 mins.

Take them out as they begin to brown.

They stay fresh upto a week, but they are at their flaky,buttery best on the day they are baked. 

BLUEBERRY CUPCAKE

We had never made cupcakes ever, and we call ourself bakers.Ha!
What sort of a baker hasn't made cupcakes.
This weekend we decided to end this apprehensiveness towards making cupcakes.

I pulled out a regular cake recipe and decided to give it a shot. But whats the story? What our justification for making cake and messing up the kitchen?
Grandma won't spare us.

Abhinav looked at the Bugs Bunny toy we got from McDonalds and said," this guy is new ... let it be cupcakes for his first birthday." I sketched out 2 cupcake designs that Bugsy might like- carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and a grey toned cake with fresh cream frosting topped with a slice of boiled carrot.

BUGS BUNNY AND THE CUPCAKE DESIGN FOR HIM

All of a sudden .. the winds changed. Abhinav comes with a letter of objection saying that Bugs Bunny was the new toy that my dad bought me from Mcdee's and that we can only celebrate his toy's birthday. 

Who cares!! I just need to make cupcakes. Best to go with Abhinav's plan. Grandma too will allow if Abhinav needs to bake. Its settled. It will be a pink coloured blueberry jam cupcake for Mitu, his favourite stuffed toy, who is also pink.

FINALIZED CUPCAKE DESIGN FOR MITU'S BIRTHDAY

Why did I ever think this was difficult? Just mix all things together and fill into cupcake cups or liners.
These bake in ten to fifteen minutes. Just mix the frosting and pipe it out on top of cute cuppies!

SO EASY THIS LITTLE CHAP CAN TO IT!

BATTER ALL MIXED AND READY TO GO INTO THE OVEN

DONE AND PRETTY PINK

FROSTED AND READY

READY TO CELEBRATE 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARLING DOLLY!

DIGGING IN!

BLUEBERRY CUPCAKE

Makes 12 Medium cupcakes

FOR THE CUPCAKES

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter 

1/2 cup Sugar

2 eggs

1 pinch of Pink Paste color 

1 teaspoon of salt

1 cup buttermilk/ yogurt

2 1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

All generally refrigerated ingredients to be brought to room temperature before you begin.

DIRECTIONS:

Mix /beat all ingredients together one by one in the order listed above.

Pour into cupcakes cups till each are half full.

Bake at 180° c for 15 mins.

Insert a toothpick in any one cupcake and if it comes out clean, your cupcakes are done.

FOR THE BUTTER CREAM FROSTING

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup softened butter 

1/2 cup cream cheese

1/4 cup blueberry jam

1 1/2 cups or more icing sugar( add 1 tsp of cornflour to 1 cup regular powdered sugar if you want to make icing sugar at home)

1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cold milk

DIRECTIONS:

Beat all ingredients together till stiff peaks form.

Fill into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle (the large the nozzle the more dramatic the icing will look)

Pipe out on top of the cupcakes.

Tips : Perfecting the frosting technique is everything when it comes to cupcake beauty. We plan to work on it ... learning to frost on paper ( instead of on cake) till we get it right and can do it beautifully and effortlessly the next time around. The nozzle you work with for frosting too can make all the difference. Bigger the nozzle the better, to achieve flouncy frosting.

I work with paste colour usually as its the easiest thing. If you are allergic to food colouring or don't like the idea of it you can try out boiled beetroot juice, in this case, for the pink.

PLANETOMANIA COOKIES

"Amma ! Jupiter has stripes! "

 Abhinav was looking at the Sky Maps app on my  iPhone. It was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen ....... planets that were red, blue, the flaming Sun and our moon. 

Soon we were obsessing over all the planets going round and round the Sun....Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, the blue Neptune.

I was planning my second cookie sale at that time and quickly needed to come up with four new cookies ideas for the sale ... not one to be a repeat from last time. One idea was to serve up a cookie for kids, designed by a kid. Told Abhinav about it and I 'I sweared' to make whatever he drew, for a cookie. 

              

He got to work on it immediately with his pastel colours and in five minutes the new cookie design was ready!

I loved it. He'd drawn out the solar system for a cookie idea, in five colours.I tried to make copies of his design,on my drawing book, in new colours. But his colour combo was really cool. I had to go with it. 

The sketch and the final cookie

The cookie recipe was simple. The mixing of colours to match Abhinav 's sketch was the tough part.

We worked together on our test batch of cookie dough. I mixed colours gradually, with Abhinav standing on a stool, checking against colours on his sketch. Once he certified a colour as a good match, I'd move on to mix the next colour. 

We rolled out squares in six different colours and based on the order of colours Abhinav had used in his sketch, arranged them one on top of the other. I tightly rolled all the layers together into one large cylinder, which went into the fridge to harden up. An hour later we pulled it out and cut out rounds and pressed and thinned these further in odd shapes to make palm sized giant cookies. Once baked… we got the brightest ,wildest cookie ever- PLANETOMANIA!

Child enjoying a PLANETOMANIA at the sale

PLANETOMANIA COOKIE

Makes 12 palm sized cookies.

THE SUGAR COOKIE RECIPE

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all-purpose flour,

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

1 cup powdered sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Paste colours 

DIRECTIONS:

Mix all ingredients together( except the paste colours) to make a dough

Add more flour if dough is sticky 

Divide into 5 parts

Mix each paste colour in few drops of milk

Add to dough and mix

Mix well for even colour

Roll into 1/2” thick squares

Layer one on top of the other

Roll tightly into a cylinder 

Refrigerate for one hour

Slice and flatten

Bake at 180° c for 12- 15 mins

COOKIE TIP :

Cookies with color look faded if you bake for more than 15 mins.

Take care, watch them .. so that they dont burn or brown.

Our story

Our story begins here….Everything starts out as a project for Abhinav and me to keep happy over the weekend......Drawing, baking, salt dough projects…da da da.

The chance to put up a small cookie stall at the apartment on Republic Day was what turned us into bakers overnight.

Abhinav was 3 at the time. He always looks bright-eyed and excited about every project I cook up and enthusiastically agrees to partner with me. We dreamt about it and discussed this for a whole week. I realized that both of us had a taste for the dramatic. Things had to have that ‘wow’ factor. They had to be special to want to make it. Basics bore us. So don’t expect to find a chocolate chip cookie or the oatmeal cookie on our page. 

We designed cookies to cater to all kinds of people who might come to our sale.

We tried, test baked and finalized on the cookies we were to present. Abhinav’s dough rolling skills, mastered at Playschool came handy. He would roll out and cut and I, bake.

A hectic long weekend of baking large batches of cookies. We actually did it. 

Clear plastic wrap packaging with a tie- up prettied up the cookies for sale.

Never done something like this before ….. what would people think of things, would they buy our cookies?

Three sleepless, anxious nights later ,we were at the sale looking all cheerful and excited to show our bakes.

Kids gathered to look at the goodies …..soon the parents came … it was most exciting to watch men buy pink heart cookies for their wives and daughters. Our cookies sold out in two hours!

Abhinav and I both feel confident to bake today, a year down the lane. We had a successful sale at this year’s Republic Day event as well. We intend to  share our best produce  and our excitement with all food enthusiasts and hope to inspire you to create your own wonders!