Another women’s day is here. And I was so at unrest? There was a small celebration in Mahi’s daycare and I was looking forward for it. And then came the news that maid is not turning up (must be celebrating a grand day for herself!). Phew!! So, we are gonna late by an hour almost. Milk spilled on the kitchen counter when that treacherous scissor played a trick with the packet and me and was smiling at my vulnerability. Mahi was very cranky and was not willing to settle for anything but a day off (from my office to attend her). I started getting armed for more such mishaps welcoming me further on the “International Women’s Day”.

The celebration was quite fun filled and mixed for us. We prepared a card using some decoration items, colors and flowers. Mahi was supposed to give it to me as her token of love. But, that card came to rescue me and console her from her tantrums and tears. It’s with her now, safe in her custody. We prepared a sandwich using 2 bread slices, ketchup, boiled potato slices and cucumber. Some chaat masala was also provided to zing up the sandwich. We were (read me! mahi was busy licking chaat masala with fingers) trying to come up with a nice sandwich. By the time I designed my bread, I realized, the challenge was to feed the sandwich to the kids fully and nothing was to be displayed as a creative thing. LOL. Anyways, I was failed to feed her my so called creation while others proudly finished that. She had a heavy n late breakfast and the cucumber slices were gone slowly into her tummy . Ahh, and not to forget the full glass of water, she gulped in daycare while crying her tonsils out.

-Sandwich we made-

So, this is how the day passed, almost. Another usual day in a woman’s life. Another common day for a mother.

Okay, back to women’s day, I really feel proud of being owner of this blog and know, most of you also do so at yours. We do this solely for the purpose of sheer joy and satisfaction. So cheers for us!!! I feel no need of praising how women have exceled in the world, how they are epitome of love and care, what they do for the family and what they deserve. Just a virtual slice of this cake I baked y’day. And yes, now that I am trying to convince my self that caking and baking is not that tremendously gigantic thing, this cake is the most successful one in the recent past (in last 2-3 months). Before that, I just baked a chocolate cake successfully last year and heaven!! it came out pretty well. Back to this cake, this is a dense cake with thick texture and less moisture because of semolina. So here we go.

Preparation Time: 20 mins (I am a novice baker, I took much more as I messed up many things)

Baking Time: 30 mins (33 for me)

Serves: an 8 inch cake

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Semolina/ suji
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour/ atta
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour/ maida
• 1/2 cup curd
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup milk approx.
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. green cardamom powder
• handful of chopped cashews and pine nuts
• 1/4 tsp. saffron

Preparation:

• Preheat oven at 200° C. Grease the baking dish of size 8-9’’ with butter at the base and inner walls too. Dust with some maida.
• Sift maida, atta, soda and baking powder together. Sift suji separately and mix together.
• In a mixing bowl, combine yogurt, oil and sugar. Stir in one direction until sugar blends in.
• Add suji mix, saffron strands, cardamom powder and milk until you get a soft dropping consistency. Beat with an electric beater for 4-5 mins.
• Immediately pour the batter in the cake tin and sprinkle with dry nuts. Quickly push inside the oven and bake for 30 mins.
• Before the end of baking, check with a toothpick or sharp thin knife to see if it comes out clean. I baked for 3 more minutes.
• Relish!! the dense sinless cake.

Glazing: Because I don’t like thick creams and frosting, I glazed it. I read about this glaze in a site, not sure of the link but this is a very easy one. Simple, beat the fresh cream (milk topping) and add some vanilla essence and sugar. Beat them well and liquify using a little milk. I used a tbsp. of cream, same amount powder sugar and 1/4 tsp. vanilla essence. Milk I added was not measured but should be a 1 tbsp. or lill more. you can adjust the amount as per your required consistency. BTW, the glaze got thicker with time. How?? I am not sure.

Notes:

Please do not sieve the suji with other flours/dry things. It may not pass at all from the sieve. My 1st big mistake.

Because suji is 1 notorious thing which will keep absorbing the liquids and continuing to fluff up, don’t waste a minute after you are ready with batter. I took my own sweet time for chopping nuts and then realised, the batter has very thick dropping. My next blunder. I added some more milk.

I did not dust the base and walls with flour. My cake stuck a bit at the bottom. another one.

This cake is quite thick and dense, not moist like a usual chocolate cake or others. But quite a healthy thing to go for and tastes pretty well.

My saffron didn’t impart a good yellow color, next time I am going to increase the amount.

Anyways, I am learning after all!!