Pongal- The Festival and The Sweet...

I have so far only blogged about baking and this is officially my first non-bake(?) post. This post is very special to me because I am writing this on request from a very dear friend of mine. You might know her as “The Inconsistent Chef” or as just Shyma Mathai. No matter how you know her, I’m sure if you have ever interacted with her, you would know that she has a huge heart and will go out of her way to help you, encourage you and be happy with each successful step you take. She wields magic at her fingertips and enthrals us with her wonderful blog The Wind Beneath My Wings . Do hop on to her blog for some amazing recipes. We met each other on Fondbites Bake Along group- one more thing I’m grateful to Subhashini & the group for, apart from all the knowledge I’m gathering over there. Even before Shyma chechi knew me, she used to comment and appreciate my photography & bakes that I used to post in the group. Not only mine, she takes time to encourage or appreciate all the bakers there, be it with a comment or a like. And I was in love with all her photos, bakes and her blog. This mutual appreciation brought us together and we became really good friends. Thank you chechi for being a good friend and a sister, and for just being who you are. And thank you for giving me this opportunity to write for you :)

Moving onto the post.. January is a festive month all over India. It marks the beginning of our Harvest season and is celebrated everywhere in our country under different names. In North India it’s primarily called “Makar Sankranthi”, though the name might change in a few states. Down South, it’s celebrated as Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Makara Sankranthi in Andhra Pradesh and Suggi in Karnataka. To my knowledge Kerala doesn’t have any special festival in the month of Jan, they do however celebrate Onam somewhere in the month of August as their Harvest festival. I am married into a Tamilian family and my in-laws celebrate Pongal with great fervor.

Pongal is celebrated on the 1^st day of the 10^th Tamil month known as “Thai” [pronounciation- “th” as in “THink” and “ai” as in the letter “i”, not Thai as in Thailand :P ] and marks the beginning of the Harvest season. So the festival holds more significance to farmers. It is usually celebrated for 4 days. The first day is celebrated as Bhogi where people burn their old and unwanted stuff, signifying purification of evil and cleansing their house. The 2^nd day is the main Pongal day also known as Surya Pongal or Thai Pongal, where people worship the Sun God for blessing them with a bountiful harvest. 3^rd Day is Maatu Pongal- Cows and other cattle are decorated and worshipped. The 4^th and final day is Kaanum Pongal- where everyone goes out with their Family for sight-seeing or to carnivals, just to spend time with family.

Thai Pongal is one of the most important festivals for Tamilians. They celebrate it by getting together with family, wearing new clothes, jewelry and by having meals together. And what good is a celebration without food? Ven Pongal and Sakkarai Pongal are made in each and every Tamil household on this day. Ven Pongal is the savory version made with dal, pepper and rice whereas; Sakkarai or sweet Pongal is made from dal, rice and Jaggery. Today I’m going to share the recipe for Sweet Pongal which has worked for me every time in the past. My husband absolutely loves this sweet pongal. So here goes the recipe.

Sakkarai / Sweet Pongal:

Recipe adapted from Chandra Padmanabhan

Serves- 4-6

Ingredients:

Green Gram/ Moong Dal/ Paasi Paruppu – 1/2 cup

Uncooked Raw Rice- 1 Cup

Powdered Jaggery- 2 cups
Ghee- 5 Tblsp

Cashew Nuts – 10, broken

Raisins- 2 Tblsp

5 Cardamom+ 2 clove Powdered

A Pinch of Edible Camphor

A Pinch of Saffron Strands

Method:

Dry Roast Moong Dal in a Pressure Pan/Cooker for a couple of minutes.
Add washed rice + 3 & a Half Cups of water and pressure cook for 3-4 whistles.

Meanwhile take the jaggery in a pan, and add just enough water to immerse it and dissolve the jaggery. Let cool and strain to remove impurities. I used home-made jaggery which has ground badam and other nuts in it, which my Dad got from one of his colleagues in Delhi. So I didn’t strain it.

Once the pressure is released in the cooker, open and mash the rice and dal together. 

Keep it back on the stove in low flame and add the jaggery syrup, powdered cardamom+clove, saffron strands and the edible camphor to the mashed rice+dal and stir well. If you find the mix gettting dry, add ghee or if its too dry, add water or milk. Keep stirring and cook for about 5 mins or until u get the right consistency.

In a separate pan, add ghee and fry the cashews and raisins. Add this along with the saffron strands to the pongal and mix well.

Serve hot.

Do try this recipe ANY day you are craving for something sweet. Wishing everyone a Very Happy Pongal. Thank you Shyma chechi once again for giving me this opportunity :)

New Year, a Neapolitan Cake and some History

First and foremost, wish you all a Very Happy New Year 2015!! Hope this year brings nothing but happiness and takes all your sorrows away.. A New Year means a lot of things to a lot of people. A new beginning, a fresh start, a new goal or just to make everything a little better than last year. I am no different. I am not one to take resolutions and have strict determinations. But I do hope to make a difference somewhere in any small way I can. Achieve a few goals and set a few things straight. And what better day for a little introspection than 1st of Jan right? 

 Anyway, New Year's eve calls for celebration. Whether you are out and about with friends, partying into the new year, or at home, having fun with family, nobody goes through the midnight hour without celebrating.. So this year, we had a small family get together at home and being the baker of the family, I was put to the task of making a cake. Which was easy because I had already made up my mind when Subhashini posted the Neapolitan Cake recipe  in November, that this would be my new year cake! Just looking at the layers made me drool. I was fascinated with Neapolitan Cakes from the first time I laid eyes on them, back when I started baking. Every baking blogger worth their salt (sugar?) has made this or some variation of the cake. Though I am not much of a History person, I really wanted to know why this cake is made the way it is- Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry and why is it called Neapolitan? I did some digging around and came to a satisfactory conclusion.

Neapolitan means "originating from Naples- a city in Italy (known as Napoli in Italian)". The Neapolitan cake is actually derived or rather inspired from Neapolitan Ice-Cream. Yes, the flavors were originally an ice cream. There is no evidence or proof to show that the ice cream originated from Naples. In fact, the ice cream was more famous in Paris than in Italy. But at the time (19^th century I gather) the Parisian ice-cream makers were none other than Italians, especially Neapolitans. So, the name. After inventing gelato and ice cream, the ice-cream makers were set with the difficulty of creating something new. They came with the idea of combining different flavors into one ice-cream. The term Neapolitan was generally used to describe any ice cream combining 3 flavors. Initially the flavors used were- Pistachio, Vanilla and Strawberry (or Cherry) to represent the Italian Flag. But as time passed, the more popular flavors at the time took over and became the unofficial Neapolitan flavors. Still, there is no official flavor combination for this intriguing dessert but now the Neapolitan Ice-cream and from that the Neapolitan Cake are known for this trio – Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry.

Now that we have the history out of the way, let us dive right into the cake. Ahh! What can I say about the flavors? You need to taste it to know what a divine combination the trio make! Layers of soft and tender sponge cake with flavors of strawberry, chocolate and vanilla bursting through every bite. It is a cake worth making, believe me! Just look at it!! 

I used Nutella frosting to frost the cake because the children in the family are huge chocolate lovers and I didn’t wanna overpower the other flavors of the cake by using chocolate frosting. So I settled for Nutella, a win-win. The children were also satisfied and I too felt the frosting complimented the cake in a strange way. But I definitely wanna try it with the custard cream used in the Fondbites recipe. I am sure that would allow us to taste the flavors of the cakes better. For filling the cake, I used the same nutella frosting in one layer and some Cooked flour frosting I had left over from another cake I had made, to take some of the attention away from the nutella..!

You can get the recipes I used in the following links- 

Neapolitan Cake

Nutella Cloud Frosting

Before I finish up, here is a last tid-bit I found interesting and amusing. The Neapolitan Ice-cream is sometimes known as Harlequin Ice-cream. Why? Harlequin refers to a character who was a jester or clown in an Italian form of theatre art known as “Commedia dell’arte” (comedy of the craft of improvisation). He is usually represented in diamond patterned multicoloured tights. Since the ice-cream is also colorful like the jester, it was called Harlequin Ice-cream!! Isn’t that cool?? Just for reading my post, here is a slice for you to enjoy 

Please don’t worry- I have not taken up a sudden liking to History. Just thought I will make the first post for the New Year a little interesting  Hope you liked reading it as much as I liked gathering the information. 

Until we meet again, keep smiling and Happy baking 

And again A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 

This has been baked for Fondbites, Bake Along, a group of enthusiastic bakers who bake one recipe every week.

Information I have provided here is taken from a lot sources over a period of time. The main sources being: Of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making, CakeSpy, eHow, Wikipedia and a few more.