My first bundt cake

November 15th is supposed to be national bundt day (which nation? some far away nation, hmm that is not the point). I didn't know what a bundt cake was 2 months back, so I don't expect you to know either, but if you knew what a bundt cake is, you are way cooler than me. So here is Wikipedia coming for our help - Bundt Cake (finally I paid up, couldn't handle the guilt any more :) ). I came across this information about bundt day from the food librarian whose blog I keep visiting very regularly. I love the pictures which she puts up there and also the recipes. After reading about the national bundt day, I decided it is the perfect time to use the bundt baking pan which I have picked up 2 months back while on a shopping spree for baking stuff.

When we wanted to make a cheese cake for the cooking-together-saturday, Lisa asked Shyam to pick up some cream cheese. The recipe called for 500g of cream cheese and Shyam picked up 1000 rupees worth of cream cheese. Since Lisa thought it is criminal to use 1000 rupees worth of cream cheese in one go, she halved all the ingredients and made the cake. That means I am left with the rest of the cream cheese in my fridge and I wanted to use that too in the bundt day baking. So I ended up with this Martha Stewart's recipe for a pound cake which I decided to bake in my bundt pan.

If you notice there is no baking powder in the recipe which caused slight hesitation. Then we decided to follow the recipe anyway. I didn't expect the cake to rise since there was no baking powder, but then it started rising and there appeared some cracks on top of the cake. Then when I checked back on the Martha Stewart page I found the picture out there also has a cake with a crack. But when I wanted to take a picture we decided to make some icing to cover up the crack, so there went some more of the cream cheese and some sugar.

Obviously if I want to post the blog for the bundt day, I need pictures. Then I realised when I have something delicious sitting in front of me I don't have the patience to take 350 pictures to select the best out of it. 5 pictures and the cake was inside my mouth. It turned out really rich (all that cream cheese) and moist, dense and real yummm. Only there was a slight buttery after taste, reason for which I need to figure out and fix next time.

Next day morning I decided to take some pictures of the cake in the garden. While out I saw many butterflies around. Then I became ambitious, I wanted the picture of the cake with a butterfly in the background. It was a wait for sometime before I managed to do that and I realised that I needed a larger depth of field to get both visible. But before the butterfly flew away, I managed to change the focus and got that in another frame, but I forgot to turn the cake around. Next time I will do a better job, promise :)

Common Grass yellow with my cream cheese cake

Butterflies in my garden

This is my 50th post. So what? Oh! Don't ask me, so what. I just noticed, so I mentioned. Nothing special. Phew! You are sometimes rude.

I have been thinking about documenting the butterflies which visit my garden, But then butterflies, just like long-billed sun-birds, do not like getting photographed and it is quite some work running behind them to get a picture in which they are stable and in-focus. Then I found out that the secret of getting the right picture is not about running behind them tirelessly, but being patient and sitting, waiting at the right place without wearing any perfume or insect repellent. You just have to live with the mosquitoes and the rashes they give. So I said forget it, let me document the stationary objects in my garden. I have quite some exotic fruits (figs, exotic for my garden), vegetables (Italian heirloom tomatoes) and spices (cardamom, pepper) in my garden. That didn't sound very challenging, I told myself if I can get 10 distinct butterflies captured in my camera I will blog on them, forget them being in-focus. So here I go with my far away from perfect pictures. The idea is to just document the butterflies, photographing them beautifully is for sometime later.

Common Bluebottle

I have not seen many blue bottles in my garden. This could have been one rare visit or it visits at particular times in the year. But this is one pretty butterfly I would like to see much more of it in my garden.

Common Grass Yellow

Common grass yellows are there in my garden whenever there is sun shining and always near the globe amaranth plant. I just had to sit quietly near the plant for 5-6 minutes for them to come back and sit on the flower for me to take the picture.

Common Leopard

 I don't see common leopard any more in my garden. The day it appeared, I had at least 3-4 and I managed to take pictures. But not any more.

Common Baron

 Common barons also don't visit my garden now a days. It is quite possible that the character of my garden has changed in such a way that the butterflies which visit have also changed drastically.

Common Mormon - female and male

Common Mormon is one butterfly which visits my garden in it old and new form. But the problem with this butterfly is that it is very difficult to capture it staying still (for me), look at its fluttering wings. At least the male is better captured.

Crimson Rose

Crimson Rose is the winner, or at least so I thought till I saw some other. May be because this is the first one without a "common" at its front. It is also one of the regulars in my garden then and also now and very pretty. But I wonder how it manages to get so dirty (see the top left one).

Blue Mormon

Currently Blue Mormon is the winner, may be because it is the newest visitor to my garden. But I already saw a caterpillar of this on one of my curry leaf plants. What a pity that I didn't take a picture when I saw it, as it disappeared from the plant the next time when I checked. I couldn't find the caterpillar or the chrysalis anywhere nearby. And once Shyam saw the curry leaf plant he complained "YOUR caterpillar has eaten MY curry leaves."

Common Crow

A garden is not a garden without Common Crow. But what I am waiting to see is, it's pupa and chrysalis.

Common Bushbrown

I can say the same as common crow for Common Bushbrown also, but then my garden started getting, or at least I have started noticing them only recently.


I have a few more butterfly pictures. But I am just too lazy to go about identifying them or editing them properly, so these 9 would do. Since I fell short of my target of 10, I will compensate with this one.

Caterpillar

I have absolutely no idea which butterflies caterpillar this is. But these managed to eat away one whole crape jasmine plant of mine.

Tomorrow is Saturday, may be it is time again for me to pick up the camera and go into the garden and this time do some serious photography (get them in focus, basically).

Disclaimer: I am not an authority in butterflies, so in case I have made a mistake by wrongly identifying any of these beauties, please let me know.