Vasudev Kutumbakam

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Hou la! c’est délicieux.

There does seem to be some French connection with me because after dabbling a bit with the French language, today I made The madeleine or petite madeleine, which is a traditional small cake from northeastern France.

Now Madeleines are very small sponge cakes with a distinctive shell-like shape acquired from being baked in pans with shell-shaped depressions, but since I didn’t have that here in India, I just made it like a cake. Of course when I am saying ‘I’, it also means that all the time, my mother was present there too, doing things herself and telling me too. So it was a combined effort, with a bit of improvisations and the end result was superb!

Here it is-

Madeleines are plump, little sponge cakes traditionally flavored with just vanilla. These have a small bit of orange zest in them for added warmth and aroma.

Cook’s note: The trick to getting notoriously stubborn madeleines out of the pan without cracking them is to very generously grease the pan. Butter works best for this recipe, and it gives the added benefit of helping the madeleines achieve their trademark golden color.

Prep Time: 2 hours
Cook Time: 13 minutes

Ingredients:

•1/2 cup butter, melted

•2/3 cup granulated sugar

•1 teaspoon vanilla extract

•1/2 teaspoon orange zest (optional)

•3 large eggs

•1 cup all-purpose flour

•1/2 teaspoon baking powder

•2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar

Preparation:

Cream the butter and granulated sugar on high until it is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and orange zest to the butter. Turn the mixer to low speed and add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed.

Beat the mixture on medium-high for about 3 to 4 minutes, until the mixture has lightened in color and is very fluffy. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder. Very gently fold the flour and baking powder into the egg mixture. Once the batter is smooth, cover it and transfer it to the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Generously grease 2 standard madeleine pans and spoon the cold batter into the molds. Bake them for 10 to 13 minutes, until they are puffed and turn golden brown. Invert the pans onto wire racks and give them a hard tap to remove the cookies from the molds. Serve them warm dusted with a bit of confectioners’ sugar for the best flavor.
This madeleines recipe makes 12 servings.

Reference- http://frenchfood.about.com/od/cookies/r/madeleines.htm

Now this is the actual recipe but what we did was instead of butter, we used ghee, did not add the orange zest, instead of eggs, added milkmaid & a bit of soda, added chocolate and cocoa powder on the top and spread it (which is why the top looks the way it looks!) and since we did not have the moulds, we did not do that and neither did we put the confectioners’ sugar or anything else on top though adding dry fruits can be a good idea.

Do try it out to have Madeleines as if ordered straight from France.

Oh, and yes in case you are wondering where I got the idea for this, it’s from Transporter-2 movie!

Bon Appétit!

Madeleines

Read the original Post Here: My cooking experiment- Madeleines

Read the original Post Here: My cooking experiment- Madeleines

The best that Australia’s 2001 Test tour to India reminds us of is the unthinkable that Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman accomplished in the Kolkata Test, which the Aussies lost after enforcing a follow-on. But while Laxman helped India win the final Test at Colombo nine years later with a masterly century on Saturday, Dravid has been left to introspect what he needs to do in order to keep his place in the Test XI.

More on my official post at cricketnext.com

Read the original Post Here: Dravid needs to take a cue from VVS

Recently I came across a concept which I thought was quite interesting- The Prisoner’s Dilemma

It is a fundamental problem in game theory. It is a situation where two parties must choose to cooperate or not and where both gain when both cooperate, but if only one cooperates, other gains even more, while if both don’t cooperate, both lose.

To explain it better, let’s say there are two people- A and B who are caught for a crime. Both of them make an agreement that they will not confess the crime and remain silent. Now they are separated and questioned. So now, if both remain silent, they get 1 year in prison, if A cooperates (keeps the agreement) and remains silent but B confesses, then A gets 20 years in prison while B goes free and similarly the other way round if A confesses to the crime and B doesn’t, then A goes free but B gets 20 years and in the case where both confess the crime, both get 5 years in prison.

This figure below might make it clear:

Now there can be variations of this but this is what it is basically. It is interesting because suppose that you are in this situation, what will you be thinking, what about the other person, how much will you trust him? What if he is a close friend? Can you be confident that if you both agree to remain silent, he will do so or confess and go free where you get 20 years?

In this situation, I would feel that if there is a person you can really trust, you can agree to both remaining silent and spend 1 year in prison but otherwise the best option is to confess where you will either get 5 years or none depending on his answer.

What do you think?

Read the original Post Here: Interesting Concept- Prisoner’s Dilemma

Read the original Post Here: What happened Kid ?