Meal Of Indulgence, Everywhere!

Using local ingredients in baking can make food healthier

- Vibha Varshney

It's an interesting idea. In her book, Uparwali Chai: The Indian Art of High Tea, Pamela Timms promotes high teas. But there is a twist to the book—she has used indigenous Indian ingredients for preparing the cakes, pastries and cookies to be served at this meal. She has customised traditional European recipes to replace cream, berries, apples and bananas with phalsa, cape gooseberries (rasbhari), mulberries (shehtoot), gondhoraj lime, karonde (Bengal currant), pickles, tamarind, curd and mawa (concentrated and solidified milk). She has even used Roohafza cordial, a multiherb cooling drink that can be found in most Indian homes to flavour cakes, and used chikki for making cupcakes.