Since I am going to India in a few weeks time, I am in a major fridge cleaning spree. I know V won’t use any of the baking stuff that I have stored up and am sure they won’t last till the time I am back. I also have to make enough room in the fridge to stock up food for V’s coming forced bachelor days. At least for the initial few days- then he is on his own. I had been planning to make a cake for my mom’s birthday- which was yesterday, the Jan 12th. The idea was to make a red velvet cake with cream cheese filling. But, then I had raspberries- so it became red velvet with raspberry cream cheese. But, there was no cream cheese in the fridge. Thought of going to the store to get some- and just as I was about to I remembered I had some greek yogurt that had been sitting in the fridge. Hmm…can I use it as a substitute- googled but did not find any confident yes in the search results. Tasted it and thought it might just work. So the cake became, Red Velvet cake with a raspberry greek yogurt filling. That’s what I thought!

I decided to make the filling first. Thank god that’s what I did. The yogurt creamed really good, but when I added the raspberry puree it thinned down. I tried thickening it, with my amateur techniques, but nothing helped. Looking at the consistency, I thought of turning that batter into cake batter. Added some flour, leavener, poppy seeds- and put it in the oven for it to do its trick! I decided to take the cake for my movie afternoon with my friends and they looooooved it- even the one who is on a strict diet and avoids all sweet stuff- she ate three pieces one after the other. I am so proud of myself! 🙂

(I just hope I wrote down all the components correctly! =/ )

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Yesterday, V and I called our Indian friends home for dinner. Fortunately, for me, this was not the first time they were having food cooked by me. I say fortunately, because, the food was not tasty, at all :(. I had made sookhe kale chane (dry black chickpeas), aloo sabzi (a spicy mashed potato dish), bhindi raita (okra in yogurt) and poori (a deep fried Indian flat bread).

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