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

This is my title cause I have no idea what to title this post.

It's been a while, I know. Sometimes, when one has good intentions to do something, but that something isn't mission critical, that something gets pushed down the to-do list. And pushed. And pushed. School has been good, but it is getting tough. I like a challenge though. Work has been awesome. The first few days I was sort of nervous, but now it's really fun. All of the other chefs working at Prego are super nice and they give great advice. So far I have learned some new knife techniques, made pizza dough, learned how to roll the pizza dough into proper dough balls, made deep-fried feta and fig stuffed risotto balls thingys, learned how to butcher a duck, and I'm learning a lot about Italian cuisine. For example, Tuscani means food that is made very rustic by using rosemary, sage, garlic, and basil. The aromatics in Italian are quite superb. Chopping up the fresh herbs is my favorite. For a couple days afterward, my hands smell like pizza! Seeing how a kitchen works and all of the different aspects of it has been great. If someone orders a Caesar salad, the order goes to the chef whose station is antipasti and salads. He then preps the salad while asking the main course chef for a grilled chicken breast. Everything comes together, final touches are applied by the chef at the pass (the area where dishes are handed from the kitchen to the waiters and then to the customers) and the food is out. The order tag is discarded and the process begins again with new orders.

The reason I have been a terrible blogger lately is that I have been so busy with regular stuff that has to be done, I haven't had any extra time. I haven't even cooked, apart from work, in a month!! My knives are so sad. They say, "Please, use us! We are so sad from staying in this old kitchen drawer all the time." On the topic of other things, the horse show this year went really well. I competed in the beginner category, this being my first show competing. I won 1st place in the ball and bucket race, 2nd place in equitation, and 2nd place in the hat race. I had a blast, even though I hardly slept the whole weekend.

So, yeah. Life has been good. Today I went to my favorite coffee shop, went swimming at a friend's house, and managed to have some time to blog. I will try to make something over the weekend or next week, and then let you know how it goes. Ooooh, and by the way, we went to see Lincoln, and it  was really good. I highly recommend it. Thanks for reading! 

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? :)