The lockdown in India is going strong. In fact, the area I live in an area that has been tagged as a “hotspot” which means that now, we can’t even get out of the house to buy essential items. So the last two days have been spent scrambling to get groceries and shipping my grandparents back to our home. Things have been hectic for sure but I think it’s better that a country as large and diverse as ours is taking painfully brutal precautions because small interventions just would not have worked. I am really impressed with the level of sound governance taking place during these times and the fact that public unrest is next to minimal. I hope that we are all keeping safe and healthy at home, away from large crowds!

I was surprised to see how many people have birthdays in April! Ever since I have hinted to the fact that I’m making this cake, there have been so many requests for the recipe! I have been trying to push this video live as soon as possible and I hope today is the day! Birthdays aren’t the most special things in our tiny family. We do have parties but we aren’t the kind of people who do surprises or wake you up in the middle of the night to wish you HBD. The thing with birthdays is that there is always too much pressure. The pressure on the celebrant (the person celebrating the birthday) and the celebrators (loved ones around the celebrant trying to make the day as special as possible). This pressure, in my opinion is what kills the day. The celebrant constantly hopes for bigger and better things while the celebrator is always wondering if they have done enough— causing stress for all the stakeholders involved. I think a small celebration is underrated. Natasha and I have birthdays just 4 days apart from each other, and all we did was spend time around good food! It was actually perfect. I made this cake for my dad’s birthday who turned 53 this year. The lockdown was like a silver lining to the event because all we could do was spend time with each other.

We made homemade margarita pizzas, along with dad’s special frozen margaritas (I call these dinners, “margaritas with margaritas” dinners). To top the night off, I made this chocolate whiskey cake. I have said this many times, but I rarely like to make cakes. I mean, baking in general is too hard for me because you make all this effort to prepare batters but the final cooking process is not under your control at all. At the end of the mighty long process, you have to submit your raw ingredients to the higher powers of the oven. This cake is one of those foolproof recipes. I use an oil base over a butter base because they tend to be a lot more moist (also nostalgic to desi bakery shops who to be honest, rarely use butter); the ingredients are minimal and the only chocolate you need is powdered cocoa (which ideally should be dutch or alkalised chocolate so that you can get the dark colour), sugar, and eggs (I have mentioned the replacement for eggs in the recipe). The frosting was a whole experiment. I used milk instead of heavy cream, and compound chocolate (because that’s all I had at home) which turned out to be amazing. I hope to see many stories of all you making this very soon!

ALSO: Check out our podcast on the essentials of cake!!

Glimpses from the week

Ingredients

For the cake

¾ cup vegetable oil, plus more for pan

1⅓ cups all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1¾ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably dutched cocoa)

1 tablespoon instant coffee

3 medium eggs (to make it eggless: swap the eggs for 1/3 cup of greek yogurt or hung curd)

1 cup milk

60 ml whiskey (optional)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

For the frosting

170 grams of semisweet chocolate (or compound chocolate)

¼ cup icing sugar

60 ml whole milk

150 grams unsalted butter

¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

1. Whisk all your dry ingredients together in a large dry bowl: flour, cocoa, salt, instant coffee, baking powder and soda along with all the granulated sugar

2. For your wet ingredients: add your eggs, oil, whiskey, and vanilla extract in a medium bowl until well combined and creamy, about 30 seconds. Using a spatula, mix egg mixture into dry ingredients until fully incorporated. It will be thick and pasty, that’s okay!

3. Warm 1 cup milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until it comes to just a bare simmer—make sure it doesn’t come to a boil. Whisk warmed milk into batter until lump-free and just combined; do not overmix. Immediately transfer batter to prepared pan.

4. Tap pan a few times on work surface to encourage some of the bubbles to escape. Bake cake in an oven at 160 celsius for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.

5. For the frosting: Melt chocolate and butter in the microwave or in a double boiler until completely melted.

6. Using a hand mixer, whip the chocolate mixture, slowly adding milk and icing sugar (sifted). Mix all the ingredients and place the mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes. Remove and whip again for 5 minutes. Place in the fridge and follow the same process again until you create a glossy thick frosting (I repeated the process twice. The more you whip, the more air would build into the frosting and the lighter the color would get) .