Pursuing a passion for baking in India in quite a challenge, where one probably spends more time out on the road finding the right equipment and ingredients than in the kitchen creaming butter and sugar.
But for me, it’s this challenge that makes baking that much more fun. If everyone were baking the fleur de sel cookie or making their own dulce de leche, I’m not sure if I’d be as thrilled about baking.
With several queries about the ingredients I use, I figured I’d just write it all up in a post and keep this space as the one point of discussion when it comes to the kind of ingredients we have access to in Bombay/India.
Butter: AMUL! And happily so. After being so used to salted Amul butter, I much prefer using it in my bakes. When a recipe has an addition of salt in the recipe, I usually skip it. Parsi dairy does sell unsalted butter, but that has a shorter shelf life. Als0 available is French butter – President if you want to follow the fussy route.
Granulated sugar: The most common and cheapest sugar available -the kind that’s available loose at your local vendor. In fact, when I don’t have caster sugar at hand, I simply grind this up in the mixer to a powder to use it for my baking. Finely ground sugar helps speed up the process too, as it melts into the butter sooner.
Caster sugar: Blue Bird caster sugar is probably the most widely available sugar, and that’s what I use.
Demerera sugar: When recipes call for brown sugar, I almost always substitute with Blue Bird demerara sugar, mainly for want of the real thing. I’ve tried a few other brands, but they leave the most undesirable feeling on the roof of the mouth that lingers on. And for all the recipes I’ve worked with so far, not having light or dark brown sugar hasn’t been a deal breaker. I deeply miss real brown sugar in my apple crumble though.
Icing sugar: I’m pretty flexible with the type of icing sugar I use, but that’s mostly because icing cakes with sugar and buttercream is not my thing. I use icing sugar more for dusting, making macarons.
Flour: I use regular all purpose flour or maida for baking almost everything: cakes, cookies, brownies, and even breads. No high protein flour. We do get the 00 type flour, but that’s just indulging. I’ve heard mixed things about using gluten powder and those bread improvers, but haven’t really felt the need to use them.
Eggs: I buy eggs from the guy who comes home to sell eggs and bread every evening. Sometimes they’re small, but most times they’re fairly large – weighing 50-55g without the shell. That’s why I tend to do away with the egg size specification in my recipes because it hasn’t mattered all that much. At least, not yet. Of course, if your eggs are the desi kind (where do you get these, by the way? I haven’t seen them in the longest time) then you might need to be a little careful, because those are just too tiny. We do get brown eggs in super markets, but they are just good to look at (or photograph). Every time I bought myself a carton, at least 2 eggs had a red spot. The internet tells me they’re harmless, but I’m happier ignoring that.
Milk: I almost always use Amul Taaza for my baking. That’s the one we have lying around the house. I’m a tad lazy to go and buy (okay, I just have to pick up the phone and place the order, but still) whole milk when a recipe explicitly calls for it. I’ve taken my chances, and they’ve all been good.
Cream: I use Amul Fresh Cream (25% fat) for all the recipes that call for both light and heavy cream and it works like a charm. Although, that’s not entirely possible when you need to whip it up for recipes (eg. mousse). The best option would be to get your hands on Parsi Dairy cream, even though it has a short shelf life. Other than that we get non-dairy/vegan whipping “cream” called Tropolite. This is way better than Rich’s and won’t leave that awful after-taste in your mouth.
Vanilla extract: An appeal to all you readers in Bombay. Please, please don’t use those tiny bottles of Viola for your baking. That’s synthetic. Instead, make your own vanilla extract. Easy peasy.
Vanilla pods/beans: I’ve baked with Indian and Tahitian vanilla beans and nothing beats using the real McCoy. Pure flavour with gorgeous specks to boot. The ones I had were from farms, suppliers, friends, readers so they didn’t come labeled under a brand name. And frankly, with vanilla growing abundantly in India, you don’t need that. You just need to tap in to your friends and family in South India who will buy them for you. The first thing you’ve got to do when you get some vanilla: make vanilla bean sugar.
Chocolate: Firstly – Morde, Selbourne, Lotus etc is not chocolate. It’s chocolate compound that’s overtly sweet and has been stripped of all the goodness of the cocoa butter and replaced with vegetable fat. I use Callebaut and Ghiradelli for all my baking.
Cocoa powder: For the longest time, when I didn’t have access to premium cocoa powder, I used Cadbury cocoa powder. I’ve also used Hintz and Hersheys available locally, but for some reason I kept going back to Cadbury. Must have been the childhood attachment to the brand. Luckily, I now have some Valrhona cocoa powder that will last me a few months.
Food colour: I detest using food colour, but sometimes you just have to let go when you’re making pretty macarons or fairytale-like red velvet cupcakes. I’ve used Viola, Mc. Cormick, Marson, Three Leaves, and Wilton – and I’m not particularly partial to any. Wilton is expensive though.
Gelatine: I’m hardly ever use geltine, so haven’t found the need to go and test the local versions. I have Knox gelatine (which I used for the homemade marshmallows) available in sachets from USA and some gelatine leaves from Dubai.
Baking powder: I use Weikfield double action baking powder. It’s potent, and it has never let me down.
Baking soda: Not fussy about this. I simply order khaane ka soda or sodakhaar from the tiny grocery store around the corner. Just to be sure of its efficacy, I test it by adding half a teaspoon to a cup of very hot water. If it bubbles, it’s all good – airy cakes in your future.
Yeast: I use Prime instant yeast for all my bread baking. I prefer it over fresh yeast for its longer shelf live, and over active dry yeast for a more pleasant smell and quicker activity. Talking about yeast can fill pages, and I will leave that for another post.
Apples: I love baking with apples. And I find that nothing holds up better than Granny Smith apples. They are tart, firm and the right amount of sweet when caramelised with demerara sugar. The softer kind of apples that are more easily available are better for pureeing for apple butter.
Cream cheese: I use Philadelphia cream cheese for making cheesecakes or cream cheese frosting. No Amul or Britannia for me, please.
Just because I need to make this explicit – these are products that I use. It’s not a paid endorsement. And of course, if you think I’ve missed out anything, we can discuss it in the comments section.
Egg replacer (Reader tip!) A reader on twitter told me that she used Ogran egg replacer from Nature’s Basket in some recipes. Works most of the time, but not always. Really depends on the recipe.
Helpful resources:
Baking in Bombay (with a Crawford Market map)
Baking Essentials
Cookbook recommendations
Happy baking!
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