Questions that Need Answers

The jaggery milk toffee experiment came out well, whew! It has been dutifully packed up all pretty (along with an order of passionfruit marshmallows, an order of freshly-roasted curry powder, and a copy of Feast) for its intended recipient.

I would’ve been sad if I’d ruined a whole batch of milk toffee by daring to put in some jaggery instead of all white sugar.

It is definitely more on the ‘toffee’ side — it’s a little chewy; I put that down to the different moisture level in jaggery vs. white sugar. Which makes me wonder whether milk toffee originally might have been made entirely with jaggery and no white sugar at all, in which case, it might’ve been much more of an actual toffee originally?

As opposed to what we typically eat now, which has a consistency that’s sort of like fudge, but even more like maple candy, if you’re familiar with that New England delight.

Why don’t I have a food historian on tap, is what I want to know. I have questions, people. Questions that NEED answers…

Butter Melting ASMR

30 seconds of watching and listening butter melt into the jaggery milk toffee, which might have been nice ASMR, if it weren’t for the impatiently barking Ellie who really thought I should be getting her evening treats instead of wasting my time cooking…

 

Jaggery in Place of Brown Sugar

30 seconds of milk toffee bubbling. This is an unusual batch — I didn’t have enough white sugar, so I made up the difference with jaggery (which is similar to brown sugar); I wasn’t sure if it would turn out. It definitely looked somewhat different while cooking.

Not Really a Filter Girl

Yesterday morning’s curry powder grinding. I couldn’t seem to get my iPhone to capture the colors correctly — it was all coming out much more cool and washed out than my eyes were seeing them. So I ended up trying the ‘warm vivid’ filter — and it’s a little TOO warm, but closer to reality than the unfiltered version.

I’m not really a filter girl, but this was interesting.

Cooking Again

Thirty seconds of toasting cumin seed.

Adding the toasted methi seeds / fenugreek to the fennel, cumin seed, coriander.

Curry leaves, starting to toast. That scent — there’s nothing like it.

Curry leaves, partly toasted.

All the toasted spices are in a big tray now, cooling off — if you try to grind them when they’re still hot, they generate a lot of steam and clog up the grinder and it’s a nuisance. Better to let them cool first — I’ll add cinnamon stick, cloves, and caradmom seeds tomorrow, then grind it all together.

Bath and bed for me now. Sleep well, munchkins.

(Or, y’know, good morning! Or good afternoon! Depending on where you’re reading this from…)