Month: July 2025

A Mangalore ghee cake for K (and us)

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For K’s birthday, I made a cake with all things he likes – vanilla, extremely important; ghee and lots of it, a little different from the usual butter; a single flavour sponge that is simple, elegant and without too much sweetness. And a Mangalore ghee cake which I had been wanting to try for a long time now fitted this perfectly. I also wanted to bake him something different from the usual favourites I make for him: carrot cake without frosting, Victorian sponge with frosting ofcourse or a coffee cake (we love Anita’s @a_madteaparty coffee cake a lot!) and this turned out lovely – spongy, not too sweet at all and can definitely tell the ghee.

I followed Jason’s recipe, just used lesser egg. I have never had a Mangalore ghee cake so I will wait to try one before saying how alike they taste but I loved this version and texture and even Ishoo who rarely eats cakes or sweets, liked this enough to eat two small slices. Also equally important when baking birthday cakes is they HAVE to be Mili friendly. She is the first to appear for cake cutting anyway, even before the cake is rested on the table. To top it all, this cake matched what Ishoo wanted for his papa – a brown, white, vanleela cake!

Ishoo’s sticker and its magic

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You are looking at the first chilli that arrived this season on a plant that was not doing so well to start with. We had just transplanted it when it soon started having white bugs on the leaves and the leaves started to show signs of wilting. I did my usual and my only form of remediation really, with the neem spray and keeping a close watch. One thing that my few years in the garden and more years with children have taught me is to persist and hold on. I hold on with hope but sometimes you need a different kind of faith and magic to turn things around and that was Ishoo’s sticker. When the plant stood as tall as it could and we were talking about how it is being brave, even with a boo-boo, Ishoo slapped a sticker on the soil and said “well done, chilli plant”. And of all the chilli plants in the garden, this little fellow produced the first chilli and promises more. It has rained a few times, we have watered the plant everyday and the sun has been ablaze, but the sticker has stayed put and continues to do its magic since the day a little boy heaped a tender heartfelt praise for this chilli plant.