How long does it take to “make” a tradition? A  generation? Two?  More?  I’ll leave others to debate that, and confidently declare baking to be an established  tradition in Coorg!

Of course, we have traditional preparations which are cooked in embers – a form of baking, as it were. But the baking I’m referring to here is the kind which involves the making of cakes, biscuits and the like. The ladies (perhaps some gentlemen too) of Coorg have a great fondness, and a definite talent, for baking. Cakes, meringues, pies, tarts, scones – you name it, they love to bake it! For as long as I can remember, it’s been almost de rigueur for this baking talent to be showcased at family events – engagements, weddings, naming ceremonies, and even at wakes. Some enterprising ladies have found profitable outlets for their talent by supplying delicious homemade chocolate cakes to local stores in Coorg.

In Pune, not long ago, I got to indulge in a host of tasty treats from some of the city’s excellent bakeries, many of which are run by Iranis, who brought their baking traditions with them when they migrated from Persia. Baking and patisserie have woven themselves into the culinary landscape in India through a medley of cultural influences – Persian, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Italian, and, of course, British.

In Coorg, the influence was mainly British, though some of the most outstanding commercially produced baked goods that my grandparents and parents generations enjoyed came in to Coorg from the bakeries of Mangalore, and also from Tellicherry and Kannur (Cannanore) in Kerala, where the influences are more mixed.

At the beginning of the last century, there was enough of a European presence in Coorg to require the establishment of provision stores that stocked  ingredients necessary for their daily repast. Refined flour and sugar, baking powder, candied fruit, chocolate and cocoa were available in these stores.

It’s hardly surprising then, that these novelties caught the fancy of many an adventurous local cook. A friend recalls her mother determinedly baking biscuits in a small village near Ammathi in the 1930’s, probably working from a recipe found in a magazine. She used the lid of a cigarette tin as a cutter, and improvised some sort of contraption on the wood fired stove for an oven!

Speaking of remote corners –  beginning in the 1920’s, my paternal grandparents spent a good part of their lives in the Andaman Islands, where grandfather was in the Forest Service. My grandmother, Bollu Thai, who as young bride, went from life in the relatively gentrified town of Mercara, to the wilds of the Andamans without batting an eyelid, filled our childhood with wonderful tales of the life their family led there. Of course, she made light of the hardship and danger they faced on a daily basis, turning every hair raising episode into a tale of adventure that had us on tenterhooks, even when we knew the ending. She was a truly gifted story teller, who left you begging for more, even if it was to retell a tale heard a hundred times before.

One episode that comes to mind here is of the time when some senior officers arrived from the mainland on a tour. A visit was scheduled to the far-flung island home of another Coorg family, also in the Forest Service. Imagine their surprise when the lady of the house greeted them with an impeccably laid out tea, complete with a freshly baked cake. Not to be limited by her rudimentary kitchen facilities, she had baked a cake in a large biscuit tin, buried in  the burning hot sands of the beach!

It was from Bollu Thai that I learned that cake, eaten with condensed milk and cream was a legitimate food group. Wouldn’t she have loved pastel de tres leches!

My grandmother in Coorg, on the other hand, made an impeccable pound cake, and the best seed cake bar none. When the groceries were delivered home from the fancy store in town, Spencer’s, a tiny brown paper bag rustling and fragrant with caraway was a sure sign that we’d be eating seed cake in the next day or two. Nibbling on those seeds while helping my grandmother was something I loved to do. And carrying little bottles of vanilla and almond essence, clinking into the kitchen, anticipating which one she might choose that day seemed like a terribly important job. Grandma mixed her cakes by hand, by which I mean she actually stirred and mixed the batter with her bare hand, creaming the butter and sugar, mixing in the eggs, folding in the flour, scraping the sides of the mixing bowl. I like to think that’s where the magic lay. She also had a grand way of slicing a cake into doorstop sized slabs.This generous portioning extended to slicing bread too, and soft, pillowy loaves of bread from the local “Cosmos Bakery” disappeared rapidly in clouds of butter and homemade jams.

Early on in my parents’ army life, my mother had to make do with ovens fashioned from tall biscuit tins ingeniously designed with a sand tray at the base for better heat distribution. Precariously perched on a flickering kerosine stove, they did a great job of the birthday cakes, biscuits and jam tarts that my mother baked. The ovens were rough, but far more reliable than the temperamental and fragile domestic electric models that became available in the 1970’s.

It was 36 years ago that a certain Baby Belling oven arrived in our home, and life as we knew it was never the same. It was my late Aunt,Tara, a gifted baker herself, who first explained to this curious eight year old that the “Oz” in a recipe meant an ounce, a measure of weight. That dispelled any strange, wizardly notions I might have had in my mind, and I got down to the business of baking. I faithfully copied recipes out of my Aunt’s stacks of Australian Women’s Weekly , following her lead in trying out recipes like Maori Kisses and Valentine Pavlova. Oh! The exotic headiness of it all!

I spent countless hours feeding the little Baby Belling with all kinds of offerings, mainly from recipes by that grand old lady of British cooking, Marguerite Patten. Later, there was Patricia Dunbar, Mary Berry, the Brothers Roux, and so many others to turn to for inspiration. That little oven survived careless handling , umpteen moves, many burnt offerings, (including a hapless rat that foolishy took up residence during  a brief lull in activity), and wildly fluctuating electricity. It eventually retired to life in the country, along with my parents. And yes, it continues to chug along helping another generation make delicious memories.My niece and her grandmother have an apple pie baking tradition of their own! When I return to visit, it is like meeting a dear old friend. 🙂

A cake for Coorg

I don’t bake as much as I used to nowadays, but there is one cake that I fell in love with a few years ago, and like to think of it as possibly the cake for Coorg.

In Niloufer Ichapouria King’s wonderful cookbook, “My Bombay Kitchen” she shares a recipe given to her by her friend, Ragnhild Langlet. It’s a Swedish cardamom cake. Unlikely as it sounds, faraway, Nordic lands like Sweden harbour a deep passion for Cardamom!  And you just have to try this cake once to know why Niloufer refers to it as “a precious gift”

This is the cake I bake when I’m home, visiting my parents. A step out into the garden to snip a few cardamom leaves, crank up the old Baby Belling , and not too long after, sit down to the most beautifully fragrant and delicious cake imaginable.That’s the routine. Somehow, this one seems made for, and of Coorg.

Do try it, and you’ll see what I mean.

And here it is, reproduced with permission, from Niloufer Ichapouria King’s “My Bombay Kitchen”:

Cardamom Cake

The recipe for this cake, one of the most precious gifts I’ve ever received in my life, comes from a generous Swedish friend, Ragnhild Langlet, a textile artist of extraordinary talent. The cake became an immediate favorite in our household, an honorary Parsi dessert and our most requested birthday cake.

We met Ragnhild Langlet in a Berkeley garden in the early summer of 1987 at a potluck wedding celebration to which she brought an unassuming cake baked in an unassuming pan. That unassuming little cake was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever tasted. It was suffused with a scent of cardamom, crunchy whole seeds throughout, sweet enough, rich enough, light enough. Cake perfection. The taste is so exotic, so tropical, yet so adaptable to any cuisine that it’s a surprise to know that it comes from Sweden, which turns out to be the world’s second-largest market for cardamom, India being number one.

This cake is excellent the first day, even better the next and the next and the next, if it lasts that long. Serve with fruit or a custard or ice cream. There’s nothing that it doesn’t complement.
Serves 6 to 10.

2 to 3 tablespoons sugar, for the pan
Sliced unblanched almonds, for the topping (optional)
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/3 sticks unsalted butter
1 tablespoon cardamom seeds
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
Pinch of salt

• Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9-inch diameter springform pan by buttering it liberally, sprinkling 2 to 3 tablespoons sugar, and shaking the pan until the bottom and sides are coated with sugar. Don’t worry about extra sugar on the bottom. Cover the bottom with sliced almonds if you want a particularly crunchy topping. Ragnhild also suggested ground almonds or bread crumbs. If you want to be absolutely sure that the topping won’t stick, use a parchment paper disk to line the bottom of the pan before buttering and sugaring it.

• Using a stand mixer if you have one, a handheld beater, or a powerful and patient arm, cream the eggs and sugar until thick and pale and tripled in volume, about 5 minutes. Melt the butter in a little saucepan. Bruise the cardamom seeds in a mortar. Quickly fold the flour and salt into the egg and sugar mixture, followed by the butter and the cardamom. Give the batter a thorough stir before tipping it into the prepared pan. Thump the pan on the counter to settle the batter.

• Bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes. The top should feel dry and spring back when lightly pressed, and a skewer or knife inserted into the center should come out dry. Remove from the oven and leave in the pan about 5 minutes. Run a knife around the sides of the pan before inverting the cake onto a rack to cool. Remove the bottom of the pan carefully while the cake is still very warm. Let cool before serving.

Rose Geranium Cardamom Cake:
For our dear friend Catherine’s birthday in 1987, I embedded rose geranium leaves in the top of the cake (actually the bottom of the springform pan) along with the almonds, and served it with a winter fruit compote also lightly scented with rose geranium. If you can ever get near a cardamom plant, which is a member of the ginger family, try a leaf from it, too.

Niloufer, I can’t thank you enough for sharing the recipe, and for letting me share it here! 🙂