How a simple act of baking has brought my family closer

We are well into the new year now and the festive air of the last few days has still not crept out. Perhaps it has been frozen to its feet by the austere treatment the cold has decided to mete out to us this year! Celebrations and parties still abound and with that come those sweet delicacies and desserts, handsomely propped up on the dinner table deviously mocking the hour-long workout I had that same morning. And then I hear my inner ‘divine’ self telling my outer ‘ravenous’ self- “just this once, just this once!” If a tiger tasted blood, I’m sure he would have the same predicament as me right now. I think of it as fait accompli and dig into my next bit of a decadent chocolate truffle cake.

As I munch and crunch through the cake, I can feel my thoughts meandering into my own childhood- into my mother’s kitchen, always smelling of something delicious. Beautifully kept, clean and organized- everything labelled and never moved from its place. The permanence of fixtures included our Labrador ‘Lancer’ who was found perennially parked at the door to the kitchen since he, with his usually muddy feet and perpetually drooling mouth, wasn’t allowed inside.

I wasn’t the nice child who helped her Mom with her cooking. I disliked it to say the least (I would still have someone cook for me if I could!). But baking! That is another story. If my mother, Mummy as we call her, can make finger licking food, she can make fanciful and scrumptious desserts and cakes that can catapult you into food heaven. I do not remember a single birthday where she did not bake a cake for us herself- no matter how preposterous the demand. Trains, butterflies, robots - if we wanted it, she made it.

Baking in India back in the 80’s was probably not as convenient as it is today. Everything was not easily available, especially in smaller towns. I remember Mummy getting her cake tins especially made from a welder and using plastic milk bags for icing! And the Indian summer. Oh! The cream would never fluff up because it was so hot, and she would have to put her bowls on ice cubes the entire time, just to keep the cream cold so it would whip.

Maybe watching my mother weave this magic with her ingredients is what made me fall in love with baking too. Spending cold winter mornings reading recipes together, measuring the flour and the sugar, adding just the right hint of vanilla, whisking the cream just to that perfect consistency (my mother ever so particular about the ‘peaks’ that whisked cream should make), adding a bit of this and a bit of that and carelessly eyeballing the chocolate because we loved it so much are the happiest memories of my childhood.

The most riveting thing about pleasant childhood memories is how we pass the experiences on, inadvertently or otherwise to our own children. Legacies are not made by instruction or are not intended to be made so. There is no manual. They are welded together by families doing what they love. Where there is love, there will be memories.

I’m no different. To get my children together, all at one go, the only thing I need to say is- ‘who wants to bake a cake today!’ and they come running down to the kitchen fighting over who will do what! The heated debate almost reminds me of the scramble for colonies by the European powers in the 19^th century, all wanting their own share of the riches.

There is a thrill in this madness though. Between fights over whose turn it is to mix and the spills that ensue to the umpteen ‘is it ready, yet?’ impatient tastings of the raw batter, there are memories that are slowly cajoling themselves into our home and right there, I know I have what I will remember most when I am with one leg in my grave.

Cake making may be an industry by itself now where it is now fashionable to spend big bucks on elaborate and huge cakes, tall enough to embarrass the tallest buildings in NYC, but there is truly no price for the love that goes into something made by hand and at home. They may not look picture perfect, but they do get the biggest smiles.