Tres leches cake

A cake as light as a feather……that’s delicate on the tongue. A cake topped with three kinds of milk….maybe even four! A cake whose origin is a convoluted mystery — was it Nicaragua, or Costa Rica? Mexico or Cuba? Spain perhaps? Or was it Nicaragua or Mexico’s answer to the Italian tiramisu? Like the mystery …

Onde Onde

The Peranaken community is unique to South East Asia and particularly the Malay archipelago. Chinese or Indian Traders who sailed to the Malacca straits and plied their wares, couldn’t return to their places of origin until the monsoon winds aligned with their destinations. So they would drop anchor literally and figuratively and spend 4 to …

The Strange Case of Thoothukudi Macaroons

Did you know? Of the strange case of macaroons of Thoothukudi? All of us have eaten macaroons before. The shaggy, chewy, coconut filled cookies that seem to be the country bumpkin cousins of the lah-di-dah French Macarons. But have you ever eaten a Tuticorin macaroon? I tasted them for the first time when I joined …

Of Plum Cakes and Kerala!

Did you know why Plum cake and Kerala are synonymous? How did something so British become a Kerala staple? In 1880, a young man named Mr. Mambally Bapu returned from Burma where he’d learned to bake biscuits and set up the Mambally Royal Biscuit Factory in Thalaserry. In 1883, a few days before Christmas, Murdoch …

Sugar and Candy

The very word conjures up images of M&Ms and Hershey’s kisses, gumdrops and candy canes, jujubes and gummy bears, peppermint patties, puffy marshmallows, colourful lollipops and all things tooth achingly sweet. But did you know that the word candy comes from Khand or Khandsari — another name for raw sugar? Or that the word Sugar …

The Ice Cream Story

Did you know? Walls! The name is synonymous with Ice cream today. Walls is found everywhere, in the largest of malls and the smallest of towns. However, long before Walls became the symbol of global cooling, it was but a modest shop selling (and you are never going to guess this!) pork. in 1786, Richard …