Lil' Pumpkin

Dark chocolate fudge cupcake for a baby shower to honor a special couple's very own first little pumpkin...Decorations in butter-cream frosting and sugar.

Happy Notes

I read somewhere that life does not consist of the number of breaths you take but of the number of moments that take your breath away.  A range of emotions from cries of joy to painful sighs fill our days and years and in the end if we have been able to bank the laughter more than the tears we feel life has been worth it.  The hard work is to figure out a way to bank the giggles so that we may use them at times that call for tears. 

Worry, anxiety, stress, ego or depression appear to have become a daily agenda item.  It's no small wonder that we now struggle to feel relaxed and enjoy the fun things life has to offer.  My significant other often says that "it's not a big deal if you don't want it to be"...there's so much wisdom in that train of thought.  Is it really a big deal if my son spills his yogurt on his clothes at the breakfast table just before school or is the fact that he is self feeding and self reliant a bigger deal?  Clearly the latter, yet I tend to focus on the former and spend the next couple of minutes in a high decibel exchange of words that leaves both me and my child feeling so much more worse.   Is it really a big deal that my daughter can't get one task right for the 100th time but does 500 other tasks flawlessly?  I don't know about you but if life is a song, I have been focusing on the wrong notes all along and that would explain why  humming the right tune is so elusive...

"play on rajnish" was a mellow lemon cake with lemon custard filling and frosted with butter-cream icing.  The edible rose/petal decor was done using fondant and sugar pearls were used to mimic drops of rain to shower good health, fortune and happy notes to the birthday boy.

Building Blocks of Fun (LEGO)

Eggless cupcakes with butter-cream frosting, sprinkles and fondant shaped all edible LEGO pieces.

For the Love of Cricket

A mild pineapple cake filled with two layers of apricot & pineapple spread; covered in an all fondant decor was created to showcase a child's love of the British sport on his seventh birthday.

Dreaming of a Donut

What are dreams and why do we have them when we sleep?  Leading dream researchers have embarked on a variety of neurological and psychological experiments to investigate the world of sleep and dreams. Delving deep into the thoughts and brains of a variety of people, scientists are asking important questions about the purpose of this mysterious realm we escape to at night. But a definitive answer still eludes their study.  

I like to think of dreams as portrayals of our deepest desires, fantasies and creative feats that the heart and mind yearns for but the soul has yet to achieve.  They take us to a happy time, allow us to fly and escape into a world of superfluous being where there are no bars to what one can achieve. Nightmares on the other hand are the ones which bring to forefront our fears and apprehensions.  Then there are those "dreams" which show us glimpses of the future and make us wonder how this paranormal phenomenon occurs.  Let's leave the scientific studies over the debate about dreams and paranormal activity to the neurologists and experts.  Let's focus on the enjoyable factor of a dream.

While our concept of a 'sweet' dream may not literally look like that as envisioned by a certain Simpson family member, you have to admit that the sugar-glazed donut with sprinkles along with a few beer cans symbolize guilty pleasures.  Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral or fattening and causes cancer in lab mice.  So why not enjoy the various treats of life that our happy dreams have to offer.  It's the best way to indulge without the after-effects mentioned.  So if you are dreaming of a vacation, a slice of pie, to meet that someone special or winning a medal, I say dream BIG.  For, dreams are what gives us the feeling of being on cloud nine and inspires us to reach out and achieve our goals.

A mild pineapple egg-less cake (top stack in the shape of a donut) with banana and vanilla custard filling was the "sweet-dream" choice of the birthday celebration.

A Festive Rangoli

"Rang" means color.  Rangoli refers to a dance of colors symbolizing joy and happiness, and a blend of cultures and traditions in celebrating various Hindu festivals.  These intricate folk art decorations are typically hand drawn with colored rice powder at the doorstep or in the courtyard of homes.  They are considered sacred and auspicious in bringing good fortune to our lives.  With the various festivals like Navratri, Durga Puja, Dusshera and Diwali knocking on our doors this month, I chose this as means of bringing good wishes to the birthday girl.
An eggless mild pineapple flavored cake with banana and vanilla custard filling was the calling of the day.

It is a fact that the sense of smell can trigger human memory.  What I did not know was that certain words or phrases can do the same as well.  Just recently I came across a mention of "shiuli phool"(parijaat flower) in an online post.  It immediately brought back a flood of memories from my childhood.  Wet autumn mornings, my grandmother's home, a courtyard showered with tiny white and orange flowers and myself in the middle of it, stooping down with delight to pick up as many as I could to fill my tiny bowl.  Then there was that occasional prickly caterpillar that would sometimes cause a nuisance...Ohhh...how I wish life could be that simple and sweet again...Why is it that I could find heavenly bliss in a simple act as that and have to conscientiously strive to be happy now?  What do we lose when we grow up?  What is it that takes up the place of simple delights, small pleasures and mundane happiness to make us so stressed in our lives today? 

Our genes don't change and since cognitive studies claim that happiness is halfway genetic in nature it means that we have a 50-50 chance of taking glee in the fun things of life again, like: walking barefeet on the grass, picking flowers from our garden, throwing a ball in a field and wanting to savor the festivals as they come without worrying about the tasks left un-done.  So, if you feel the way I do, I say, let's join hands to welcome celebrations be it now or at another time, be it Diwali or Christmas...let's just pick up where we left glee behind and grin away.  Always.