All articles filed in Kusum

It is said that the red velvet cakes were first made during the World War II. At first, the color of the cake used to come from the cocoa powder which when used along with the buttermilk and baking soda used to give out a deep rich color. During this time, this cake was called…

Internet today is full of cake recipes and at times you get confused which version to try. You search for one cake recipe and you get thousands of recipes. Almost all recipes are same with one or two variations here and there. You can understand most of the variations but one thing that stands out…

Pastries are baking products made from flour, butter, milk, sugar, and eggs. They can be savory or sweet. The sweet pastries are also called baker’s confectionery. The pastries are made two ways – laminated (in this method, the fat (butter or margarine) is folded repeatedly into the layers of dough) and nonlaminated (in this method,…

Macarons have been on my “Must Try” list since long. I had heard about how difficult it is to get a perfect macaron. I had planned to give one whole day to make these sweet little confectionery items but surprisingly I was able to make them in a matter of hours. There are many steps…

I bake every weekend for my website and I usually go by the monthly theme. For the month of June, I had thought about making cakes outside the oven, i.e., in the cooker or vessels. But then the mashed, spiced potatoes in the refrigerator caught my eyes. In India, we make lots of things with…

When one of my friends contacted me and asked if I make gluten-free cakes, it dawned upon me that I should definitely try my hands on it. In my “Basics of Baking” section, I have written about gluten and its bearing on cake and bread baking. But, when I started making gluten-free breads and cakes,…

A simple recipe for cake calls for flour, sugar, butter, and eggs. That’s all you need to bake a cake. But plain cakes can go only so far. Adding different flavors to the cakes takes them altogether to a different level. We can experiment with different flavors by adding various liquid ingredients like milk, buttermilk,…