Rich’s Gourmet Guide 2016

Entering a roomful of designer cakes was the biggest surprise for me. I have never seen such a big selection of beautiful cakes, neither at a party nor at any patisseries. It seemed like fairy tale word!!

Chef, chefs at everywhere, some carving out attractive figures from candy clays, some demonstrating the techniques of glaze truffles to coat the cakes, some designing chocolate ribbons and some creating innovative candy flowers. Then there were also chefs preparing smoothies/fruit mocktails and some baking savories/soups.

RICH”S GOURMET GUIDE 2016 organised by Rich's Graviss was the first of its kind held in Mumbai at Hilton Hotel. This endeavor was undertaken to bring the international food trends to its food service and bakery customers in India. Their large variety of products like Niagara Farms, Whip toppings, Truffle base, Cremagic, Nugel-Neutral, Chocolate compound kept the home-bakers mesmerised.

There was an interesting talk by celebrity Chef Varun Inamdar – Master Indian Chocolatier. He showcased live demonstration of global trends in foods and his first volume of Barcode- Artisanal chocolates with flavours across 5 states of India, his message being ‘work with honesty and interest’.

I attended the live demo of  Beverage session and Cake session.

In demo of beverage session, the chef used the product Niagara Farm to prepare pineapple  Smoothie, freak shake, bubble tea and cold coffee.

Chef prepared smoothie by blending yogurt, honey, mint leaves, pineapple pieces, whipped cream, ice and chilled water.

In another pretty glass jar, he placed strawberry jelly, then poured jasmine ice tea. Prepared a foam by mixing equal ratio of cream, milk and water and covered the tea with this foam.

The freak shake was an interesting drink. He got a jar and applied the chocolate on the rim of the jar, then blended brownies, castor sugar, Olio biscuits, Niagara farm milk, cream and poured it into the jar. Covered it with brownie cake and cream…very freaky indeed!!

In another session of Cake designing, Chef demonstrated the new trends of making cakes by using chocolate biscuits and Indian sweets like rosgolla to give a completely new taste. He gave a live demo of making truffle for coating cakes to give a shiny look. He made glaze by mixing 1kg of Cromagic with 200gms of Nuegel and 1.5 kg of dark compound. He boiled Niagara farm and poured it over chocolate compound, using spatula to mix. The mixture has to set it in fridge and then double boil and poured over  the cake to give a shiny chocolate look. The cake can then be decorated with chocolate chips and candy ribbons.

I had a lovely time listening to home baker’s stories.  Many of the women were full time home bakers and were so very interested in learning the new techniques. 

“The main objective of the event was to make our bakery and food service customers aware of global trends and also global cuisines which could be made using Rich’s products. The purpose is to inform and upgrade the quality of offerings of both bakery and food service operators to general public. I believe with Rich’s Gourmet Guide 2016, we have been able to achieve that.” Said Pankaj Chaturvedi, CEO & Executive Director at Rich Gravis Products Pvt. Ltd

Turkish Delight - Baklava

It was my nephew’s birthday and I wanted to make some sweet dish for him. His family like cakes and it is always bought from store. I decided to make Turkish delight- Baklava.

Now, I have never made Baklava, it would be first time for me too.  Back in those days, for a new dish, we had to join the cooking class to learn it from experts. But thank goodness, there is U-tube – our guru.

I saw more than 10 videos of different ways that people made this dish, around the world. It was so easy.

So what is Baklava?

Baklava is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of filo/phyllo dough filled with chopped nuts and sweetened and held together with syrup or honey.

I decided to make from scratch.

Made the Phyllo dough by mixing flour with salt, lemon juice, olive oil and water. At first it will be sticky but working on it for about 10 minutes will give a smooth dough. Keep it in fridge for some time.

Make small balls, I made about twenty.

Roll them to 2-inch diameter and stack them

Take a stack of three layers, with enough flour between them and roll them to 6-inch diameter

Separate one end and roll it over

Roll out the one layer

Unroll the layer in the greased baking dish.

brush the pure ghee over the layer. You can also use olive oil or unsalted butter instead of pure ghee

Repeat this process for ten layers, separating each layer, and laying them in baking dish and brushing each layer with oil

Crush walnuts and pistachio and spread evenly over the layers.

Cover the dry fruit layer with ten more layers of rolled dough, separating each layer with a film of ghee

Cut through to make smaller slabs

Ready to go to oven after evenly spreading a film of ghee

Bake it for 20 minutes

Normally people make syrup but nowadays syrup bottles are readily available and come in different flavours. I used mint flavoured syrup.

Pour the syrup generously over the baked babes.

Sprinkle the rest of walnut and pistachio mixture and serve.

 It is perfect gift to give somebody and my nephew loved it.