From Amma , With Love

My love affair with baking began way back in the sixties , when I was still  a young school girl. My mother, whom we lovingly called Amma, was never an outstanding cook, but her yen for learning new culinary forms was great. Baking , in those days was unheard of in middle-class Indian households. The  gas stove had not yet made an entry, and the chulha, or the angeethi were used for cooking. And that was where  Amma's first cake was  baked.

In an age when the internet  was unheard of, and the television had yet to hit India, for a housewife in a remote  Bihar town, magazines were the only windows to the world . Amma's cake recipe came from an aged issue of  the Women And Home magazine. It was duly adapted as per locally available ingredients, the British measures of ounces and pints carefully converted to metric measures. A tarazu, or measuring scale was fabricated out of plastic plates hung at the ends of a piece of wooden stick. The weights were smuggled out of the local lab ( sorry , can't let u onto the culprit ), and lo ! we were ready to get on with our first ever cake !

The family gathered around the table, as the ingredients were weighed out .Then began Amma's labour of love. The sill-batta, or the grinding stone was laid out,and Amma began the arduous task of grinding the sugar. The butter and sugar were then beaten painstakenly with a serving spoon - no one allowed to as much as touch the mixing bowl.The eggs went in one by one while we looked on  in awe and anticipation at the changing colour and  texture of the batter.Then in went  the vanilla essence, ( specially procured from Calcutta), and the flour.   The batter was poured into a greased and dusted container from the pressure cooker, and there- it was ready for baking !
There was no oven at home. In fact I don't think many Indian households did have ovens in those days. So, Amma's carefully thought out oven took shape. A large karhai was filled with sand  and put on the hot angeethi. When the sand was heated through, the cake tin, duly covered with a fitting lid, was pushed into it, till the sand came up the sides .After a while, hot sand was generously poured onto the container lid, so that the cake would be done from the top as well. Ingenious, no? It was  more than  an hour, before Amma's knitting needle came out clean from the cake. Amma had never once left the kitchen, shooing us kids and even Papa out, lest we distract her.

The cake tin rested on the dining table for what seemed ages, while it cooled , the family sitting  around, waiting ever so patiently.Finally Amma rose, looked towards the heavens saying a silent prayer, and flipped the cake tin over a plate. We all held our breaths, as after what seemed like an eternity, a beautiful brown cake slipped out onto the plate.

It was not the ideal cake, not even close to one. But it was the tastiest cake I have ever eaten. It was so full of love. All Amma's hard work, her search for the  recipe, her improvisations of the scales and oven, the hand-grinding of the sugar, all spoke of her love and zeal.

Many cakes followed that first one. Fruits, nuts, more essences and colours were added to her pantry. The oven changed from the karhai to the pressure cooker to a tin contraption that sat on the gas stove, and finally to a round electric oven. But that first cake remains in my fondest memories of Amma to this day.

Thank you Amma for starting my love affair with baking.