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Food Lite Blogs London News

Baking Affairs By Shumaila: An Exquisite Home-Grown Gurugram Brand to Look Out For 

Shumaila’s journey from hobbyist baker to taking a leap by quitting a corporate job and turning into a full time professional Baker has been an adventurous, sweet and also an inspirational one for her and many who have seen her grow her brand with aplomb!  It can certainly give hope to many passionate bakers who are trying their hand in the baking industry. Her Baking brand building journey is a story of passion, grit, entrepreneurship, drive and artistic skills which brings joy to all those who get to experience her talented baking. A feature by columnist Riccha Grrover for Asian Lite International.

Shumaila, originally as she describes herself as “a small-town girl with big dreams and determination”, hails from Bokaro Steel City in Jharkhand in India. Despite being from a small-town, she has always had a drive to be independent and contribute to her family, she reminisces.

Shumaila completed her MBA from Dehradun and dived into the corporate world back in the day. However, baking remained close to her heart and provided solace amidst the pressures of corporate life. It was during her three-year stint in Japan that she found herself captivated by Japanese cuisine and decided to pursue baking as a profession. Her first cake in Japan, made for a friend’s daughter, marked the beginning of her extraordinary journey couple of years ago and she’s not looked back since.

It was in 2017, after returning from Japan, Shumaila took a leap of faith and founded her brand “Baking Affairs by Shumaila.” From thereon, there was no looking back! The “smiles and joy on people’s faces” when they see her artistic cake creations fuel her determination to work harder each day, she says. According to Shumaila “passion is key when it comes to finding one’s purpose in life”. The ability to explore and express creatively while bringing joy and smiles to people’s faces makes her baking venture a fulfilling endeavour for her.

Shumaila particularly enjoys working with fondants and creating different textures and patterns in her designs, often bespoke to her clients briefs. Through fondant, she creates intricate patterns and textures on her cakes as per themes given to her, and by using techniques like embossing, ruffling, quilling, stencilling, and sculpting she does her cake creating magic. These techniques allow her to elevate her exquisite cake designs. Working with fondants adds visual interest and sophistication to her artistic creations. Shumaila’s fondant expertise is truly an admirable aspect of her successful baking career, most of her clients have given her this feedback she says which keeps her encouraged.

Shumaila spends time with her clients to get her briefs robustly and ensures she caters for her clients wish lists and gives detailed flair to her orders so her clients are wowed each time and this has given her a lot of word of mouth acclaim and business leads as an entrepreneur baker and she believes good quality and skill and customer service to a long way in brand building and she takes her client relationships very seriously with time and focus thanks to her remarkable interpersonal skills that evoke trust. The quality of ingredients is excellent and presentation is extraordinary. No order is too big or small for this brand and the delivery is done meticulously…if you want to wow your guests and loved ones with cakes and bakes then look no further! Highly Recommended! 

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Food Lite Blogs Recipes

Baking Day for Kids and Couples Alike

Kids with no playdates? Spend a day getting messy together in the kitchen baking peanut butter cookies and cake.  Couples can spend whip  up a storm and top it off with sinful alcohol infused dessert.
 
Cocoa Cellar is a patisserie based out of Mumbai delivers alcohol infused dessert. Their menu features options like Sacher Torte, Kahula & Coffee Macarons, Amarula & Dark chocolate cupcake and Whisky & Cashew Cookies. Devashree Muni, Owner, Cocoa Cellar who has trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Sydney, Australia, has designed and created these goodies

Here are two recipes by  Cocoa Cellar in which you can choose to include or exclude the alcohol. Both versions taste equally great.


Madeira Cake

INGREDIENTS

Unsalted Butter         180 g

Castor Sugar            180 g

Orange Zest              1 no.

Lemon Zest               1 no.

Eggs                         165 g

Cake Flour                100 g

Corn Flour                100 g

Almond Meal              80 g

Baking Powder            5 g

Salt                           pinch

Lemon Juice             1 no.

Sour Cream               50 g

Orange Juice            1 no.

Citron                         50 g

 
METHOD

 Line a 1/2kg cake tin.

Cream the butter, sugar until light and aerated. Add the zest and eggs.

Sift all the dry ingredients.

Add lemon juice, orange juice and sour cream. Mix it well and whip.

Gently fold all the ingredients through the butter mix.

Bake at 180 °C for 30 minutes or until cooked.


Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie

INGREDIENTS

Flour                      315g

Baking Soda          1 tsp

Salt                     3/4 tsp

Butter                   225 g

Peanut Butter       370 g

Brown Sugar       160 g

Castor Sugar        160g

Eggs                      2 no.

Vanilla Extract       2 tsp

Chocolate Chips   320 g

METHOD

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

Add vanilla extract and eggs and beat well

Sift the dry ingredients in a bowl and add it to the egg mix. Add the salt and mix.

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Refrigerate the dough.

Form dough balls with a spoonful of peanut butter in each ball in the centre

Bake at 180 °C for 12 minutes

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Lite Blogs

Spread happiness through baking at home

You must have tried it but cakes turn out to be made just as fluffy and flavourful in a conventional pressure cooker as it does in an oven. A couple of videos online will help you show how to do it ideal if you haven’t done it before…reports N. LOTHUNGBENI HUMTSOE

When the pandemic was peaking, staying indoors and finding little entertainment in other activities was not as therapeutic as home-cooked food provided you. The best of all was splurging on your favourite dessert/and even more fun was making them from the scratch. This also led to the inception of several home bakers, making their creations spread happiness by reaching their extended family and peers.

While the pandemic has loosened its grip and the lockdown lifestyle waning away, the excitement and energy to make large batches of cakes and cookies for extended family and friends have also gone down. It’s reduced to your own family and in most cases also you. Not to lose the charm, you are an artist when it comes to baking but a reduction in consumption size can confuse with the number of ingredients required to balance the end product.

To make your dessert truly proportionate while engaging in small-batch baking, Chef Devashree Muni, Founder, of Cocoa Cellar, a dessert kitchen selling alcohol and non-alcohol-infused desserts in Mumbai, shares some tips that you might like and also incorporate the next time that you pick up your spatula to bring those soulful ingredients together.

Use existing household cooking equipment to the fullest – Making the small-batch cooking experience truly universal as they can be cooked in those small utensils that you already have at your home. Be it a jar cake that you want to prepare or just a couple of cookies to be made on an oven-safe plate, your dessert can be baked with existing household kitchenware and you need not go on a shopping spree to get that choicest bakeware.

You must have tried it but cakes turn out to be made just as fluffy and flavourful in a conventional pressure cooker as it does in an oven. A couple of videos online will help you show how to do it ideal if you haven’t done it before.

Know and buy which equipment you cannot do without – While small-batch cooking can be fun experimentally, you want the results to be just as you desire them to be. For making them perfect, certain kitchenware like mini spatulas, measuring spoons, muffin trays, etc, for you know your measurements to add baking powder must be perfect to make your cake achieve the ideal fluff and not smell like there’s more baking powder used than needed.

Also, a cupcake needs that cake moulded silicon tray to get the ideal shape. Small tart pans ranging between 4 and 3/4 inches in diameter can be a good addition to your kitchen. If you are fond of layer cakes, you will want all the layers to sit one above another perfectly, for which a 6-inch cake tin will give you just what you want.

Understand which recipes work in both big and small batches – Given that you are not a beginner in what you do as a scaled-down version of what you are baking, you are good to make most of the smaller versions of actually traditionally-sized baked desserts. Select ingredients recipes can be made in a smaller version without any hassle. Knowing substitutes for eggs in the vegetarian version and the quantity for the same in a small batch is needed. If using yogurt, you must know its consistency of it and what kind of texture you want in your dessert.

The real-time adjustment makes the baked goodies relishing – Baking in general is a cooking process that needs your constant attention. It becomes all the more crucial in the case of small batch cooking as you have made it a scaled-down version of its usual size. Say you are melting butter in a smaller amount in the same pan used for big-sized batches, ensure that the heat applied is lesser in degree and for a lesser time to avoid burning.

If your cake size is small, your container size usually reduces too due to which the thickness increases. In this case, you might want to cook the cake slightly for more time than in the case of large-size baking to ensure even cooking of the cake. Also, scaled-down amounts need to be taken care of with the consistency of the cake batter premix and the optimal use of yeast to avoid a rubber-like texture.

The time of baking remains the same so do not hurry – A scaled-down version doesn’t mean the cooking process gets faster. Know that the consistency of the batter is just how it is in the bigger batches, so you hurrying up can leave the batter uncooked, spoiling all your efforts. So relax and let it take time as best things take time to happen.

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