Thursday’s class was all about Baking! First we started with a variety of eggless and egged cakes. We made Madiera Cake (egged), Lemon Blueberry (egged and eggless) and a Carrot and Walnut cake (eggless). We have started getting more organised now in picking out our own ingredients and preparing the ingredient trays under Chef Hrudhvi’s watchful eyes.

It was interesting to learn the various substitutes for eggs like lecithin and whey protein powder. We also learnt how to adapt if one only has a baking ring mould and not a springform mold. One of the nice things about learning all this in India, one learns tips and tricks to do more with less! For example instead of a springform mold, use a baking ring with 2 layers of aluminium foil around it to form the second layer.

The cakes were duly baked and it was time to learn how to decorate it using different icing techniques. We learnt the rustic method using whipped cream and then a piping method using piping bags! What a fun class! We also learnt how to decorate our cakes in different styles using orange segments and twists.

It was then time for lunch and today with the help of the instructors I decided to #golocal and order food from a grab and go place through Zomato (a food app). Decided to #golocal and ordered a simple grab and go lunch from @zomato (a food delivery app like food panda and grabfood). Ordered this from @ohhdailymeals which offers a set meal of local favourites and you can choose what you want. I ordered a Medium Tiffin which comprised 4 chapatis, a dhall and a vegetable dish (I chose potato and peas or known as Aloo Matter and a chickpea salad and a packet of pickle! All for a total of 127 rupees (rm7.25) including delivery. Food arrived on time and it was warm and taste was good - chapatis were soft - side dishes a bit too gravied for my liking but you can tell its produced in large quantity. For a local grab and go food it was pretty good and value for money. Thank you Chef Hrudhvi for helping me order it! #unapologeticallyvegetarian #mumbaiker #golocal

Chef Hrudhvi was also kind enough to let me taste her lunch of a Mung Bean savoury dosa like crepe which was also yummy. Nani, Chef Rakhee’s mother also made sure I tried her Mooli Paratha with a dhall. All in all I was pretty stuffed after that!

The Mooli paratha was quite different from how I usually make it. This was a stuffing of Mooli like an Aloo Paratha so it was softer. I usually mix the Mooli into the dough for a crispier bread.

Afternoon class was a private class to make eggless cookies. We were meant to do granola bars but once we realised the recipe was with condensed milk (not the healthiest of options ha ha ) we decided to save that for another day while we carried on with making Jam Thumbprint cookie, Oatmeal and Cranberry cookies and finally Ajwain and Cumin Viennoseries-learnt how to pipe the cookie in for this one. Didn’t make too many of each but learnt the techiques importantly!

Chef @rakheevaswani's 75 year old mother fondly known as Nani (or grandmother) is very much an integral part of @palateculinary - she helps out with the operations making sure we all clean up and the stocks of ingredients are all available. She is also very maternal ensuring that we all have our khana (food) on time even sharing some of the things she makes in her own kitchen at home and brings to the academy. Today she was kind enough to share her Mooli Paratha and dhall with me when she realised that I was on the hunt for local food:) of course I shared with her my eggless cookies and she was very pleased and has promised to tell me tomorrow if they were "acha" (nice) or "nahi acha" (not nice)- she is also teaching me Hindi btw:) impressive how she keeps herself busy and active at 75!!

That’s it for today folks need to run for classes!