Put it in the Oven

It was a summer afternoon. My friend Meena & I were comfortably ensconced in her room, just back from college and talking incessantly. All that chatter, so important then but so little of which one remembers, today. Meena's mother must have known this or she must have been a tad fed up of our afternoon routine, while she worked hard to run a popular cookery class from home. "You lazy girls join my class and learn a new skill. Madhu, I will have a word with your mother", she chided us. An afternoon I have looked back upon, fondly and thanked Aunty in the quiet corner of my heart.

My story, however, goes back a few years prior to that afternoon. It is so important to start on a learning journey with the right words of appreciation and encouragement. My first attempt at baking was in school in our vocational training class. Our Principal, a distinguished Welsh lady looked at the texture of my cake and called it perfect. You have to have a "light hand for mixing the ingredients", or something similar, she said. Her lovely smile, twinkling eyes, have stayed tucked away in some corner of my mind.

It was from Aunty, though, I learnt every type of traditional cakes - Victorian sponges, Swiss rolls, meadlines, éclairs, fruit cakes, gateaux, shortbreads and more. When she had shared all that she knew, she put us in for a professional training on icings - royal, butter, glaze, fondant & marzipan.

Training was one part of it - I learnt. Encouragement, was what made it stick. Rustling through my academic documents, a few days back, I came across this neat handwritten note (embedded picture) from Dad’s colleague. "....very frankly the cake, apart from being very delicious in taste, it could be compared to ones made by professionals like Macronell’s.....". No wonder this very important certificate has been gently saved over the years.

Another time Dad was making a Bombay to Calcutta tour and I baked a cake for my Aunt's family. The praise appeared a little disproportionate for my efforts, even after discounting for doting relatives. On prodding Dad, he mentioned that the icing had got messed up in transit. He handed it over to the Chef at Oberoi's who obviously did more than a touch-up!

Friends’ birthdays, sister's wedding anniversary, a thank you to Mom's doctor after an operation, house parties, calling at a friend’s, whatever the occasion, I baked. My interest got further sealed with some early orders. Particularly, in those days, a swiss roll was not common. I used to keep the earnings (a princely Rs 25/- for an eight inch roll), the ingredients and electricity charged to parents.

Then came the children's birthdays. When I look back at the photos of my nephew's first birthday, the cakes sure look amateur. As the family extended, birthdays and anniversaries helped me perfect the art. However, somewhere, along the journey, the work and travel pressures slowly relegated this interest to the background. We turned towards bought out cakes, as I rushed in and out of the city on multiple sales tours. One year, probably on my daughter’s 12^th birthday, she refused to have a cake ordered out and that became a turning point. A cricket bat, Noddy or Spiderman for my son and dainty Barbie doll dresses to jewel boxes for my daughter; I returned to baking birthday cakes.

The daughter is a perfectionist

There comes in life moments of deep stress, abject boredom and career plateaus. Baking has helped me to navigate through such times. Then there is the satisfaction of inspiring my daughter to follow in my footsteps, those many mother-daughter things that hold special memories. Like Aunty, I too pushed her to train from a professional. A keen learner, in fact, a perfectionist, she knows many more tricks than I do now. Though the miles separate us, this is one thing we share over WhatsApp photographs and exchanged recipes.

 

Today, we are empty nesters and I read cakes as calories! Life, though, has made a full circle to house parties and friends’ birthdays and anniversaries. I specialize a little, these days in low calorie cakes and dessert gateaux.

There is a lot of joy in such gifting!