The Pune Farmer's Market and a Semi-Homemade Cake

For the past few months the Pune Farmer's Market has been held at the Westin, where I work. I have been wanting to go for a while, so today we went. There were a lot of cool booths and sellers there, but there were also quite a few restaurants there. For example, my mom and dad had a pizza while Zach had a chicken shwarma wrap. I had some lemon risotto and a spinach croissant. Here are a few pictures...

Green Tokri, a veggie seller

The Good Juicery, some seriously good stuff! 

My family

 

Some cool lights :)

Overall, it was really well done and I would highly recommend visiting. The next one hasn't been announced yet, but they are on facebook, https://www.facebook.com/PuneFarmersMarket, and there is an article on the Westin blog about it, http://www.westinpuneblog.com/2012/12/pune-farmers-market.html.

Now, to the baking.

This is a recipe using a store-bought cake mix that people will ask how you made it. You might call this Italiana Americano because it uses a traditional Sicilian cannoli filling recipe and a plain old chocolate cake mix. Anyhow, it is amazing.

Chocolate Cake with Ricotta Chocolate Chip Filling

1 Chocolate cake mix
1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 to 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, based on your love for chocolate

Prepare the cake mix as directed in 8" or 9" pans. Cool completely. For the filling, beat the ricotta and sugar until fluffy and then add the vanilla and lemon juice. Stir in the chocolate chips.

My layers, cooled of course :)

I would recommend making sort of a wall with buttercream so that the filling stays where it should. Of course, if you aren't icing the cake all over, it would be fine as is. 

Just dollop the filling on and smooth it out.

Once the layers are together, you could just sprinkle over some powdered sugar, or go the whole nine yards and ice the whole thing. :)

Here we are! As you can see, a few of pecans and two miniature Hershey bars definitely do the cake justice. 

And one more angle for good measure. :p

Adding a filling to a cake mix really is easy and delicious. For the buttercream I just made plain buttercream (see recent post) and added about 1/3 cup cocoa for chocolately goodness. Also, if you want to substitute some of the ricotta cheese for cream cheese, that would be fine. I wouldn't do more than half and half, or you will lose that ricotta flavor. 

Andy

The Intern

This Monday I will be meeting with the executive chef at the Westin, an international five star hotel chain with a location here in Pune, to discuss my internship. This is a huge step in the direction of a career in the culinary arts. During this internship I will be gaining experience in restaurant and hotel management as well as the culinary aspect of the industry. I will be working in multiple restaurants in the Westin; there is a total of four restaurants in the hotel itself. I will be assisting with the lunch prep and service twice a week, and occasionally preparing for large events such as weddings for one to two thousand people. (Service is the actual cooking and serving of the dishes.) This will hopefully be the launch pad for a degree in business and the culinary arts after high school. My dream would be to start my own restaurant in Thailand, with upscale Thai-Oriental infused food, or a French restaurant in Germany with an attached French bakery and chocolatier. I know, this is all pretty specific, but I'm still deciding and I have some more time. :) My menu would be sleek, simple, and affordable. Good quality and good price is something I look for in a restaurant, so I feel that's what I should offer. I am probably getting ahead of myself, but who said you couldn't dream? :)

Mein busy visy hun, hun, hun!

Okay, first of all you are wondering what in the world the title means. Now you're like, "Oh, okay, he's gonna explain it." Yes, I will explain. A Bollywood (Hindi) movie was recently released here called "English Vinglish". It is about an Indian lady who visited New York City for her niece's wedding, and while she was there, she learned English. We really enjoyed the movie because we could relate to the language problems she had, and the culture shock. :) One of the songs talked about her busy New York lifestyle while she was there. This phrase essentially means, "I'm so busy, busy, busy!" Lately, that has been us! Hopefully now things will settle down and we can have a calm, quiet Christmas...but then again...I doubt it. :)

One of the really cool things about the movie is that the airport scenes in the movie were shot at the Pune Airport, in the city where I live. They needed expats (foreigners) to be extras in the airport because they wanted to make it look like JFK. Lots of my friends are in the movie, and I wanted to go, but the horse show where we ride was going on and I couldn't go. Anyway, there was a premiere for the extras and their friends/family, and I got to go. We were like, "LOOOOK! There's you! There's you again!", and so on. I think the movie will be available on iTunes soon,  (I'll let you know) and I recommend that you at least rent it, as long as iTunes movies have subtitles that is! I'll check on that too. :)

So stay tuned for some new recipes, and maybe even some Christmasy (if that's a word) ones!