JUST DOUGH IT!

For this project I chose GUJIA as my dish.

It’s a prominently North Indian desert made with khoya that’s wrapped it a dough, and then fried. It is a commonly eaten during holi celebrations.

Quite frankly i chose this dish because this is the only thing I know how to cook. My cooking skills are below average and I believe that If there is anyone capable of recreating the poison Apple from snow white, it would be me.

But that’s not all, the reason why I learned to cook this dish brings back a lot of memories. GUJIA is my favourite desert and I used to eagerly wait the entire year for the holi season in order to be able to eat it. I remember one day while travelling back from my school in the bus, one of my friends started a discussion regarding the food he would like to eat at that moment, my mind immediately went to GUJIA, just to be disappointed when I realised that it’s almost impossible to find it during mid- September. That’s when I decided I’ll learn how to make it.

After multiple trials and errors, almost burning my house down, and getting abused by my mother for the mess I made I was able to create what I believed was the perfect GUJIA.

That’s why I believe that this is the perfect dish for this project as it stands as a testimony of my hard work and persistence.

Day 1

After the brief I had a very clear idea about what I wanted to do. I created a flow chart in my mind and then followed it step by step.

As per the first step we had to make the dish before going ahead with the variations. Since I had made GUJIA plenty of times I knew how to go about it.

So my main goal for the day was to prepare all the ingredients for my various experiments, which I will compile together on day 2.

The thought process behind my variations was simple, Questioning. That’s all I did. I wrote down the recipe on a piece of paper and questioned the things I did in every steps.

The following was the process through which I made my GUJIA’s

1. I made the dough. For this I added some oil to the flour, this oil should be enough to pass the “fist test” as I was taught by my home science teacher. In the fist test u press the flour in your fist and if it holds the shape then it’s ready to be combined with water. I kneaded the dough till it was elastic and wrapped it in a wet Muslin cloth while I worked on the filling. I made enough for the variations as well.

2 .I then made the filling. I added some elachi powder, almonds and some other nuts to my khoya. For some reason my khoya was not we sweet as I would like so I added some brown sugar to make it sweeter.

3. I then worked on filling the dough with the khoya, for this I used a tool called the “GUJIA maker”. You simply roll the dough large enough to fit inside the GUJIA maker, it should be thin enough that you can see your fingers through it , then put in the filling and then close it to reveal a beautiful GUJAI.

4. Frying the GUJIA. I added oil to a khadai and then fried the GUJAI at low heat until it was light brown

5. The final step is to make the sugar syrup. I added equal amounts of water and sugar in a pan and then boiled it together until it was thick.

6. Finally I dunked the GUJIA in the sugar syrup and garnished it with pistachios and almonds.

The following were the main queries In my mind

1. What is the reason behind the generic shape of GUJIA?

2. Why is only khoya used in GUJIA?

3. Why do we only use sugar syrup to coat the GUJIA

All these questions helped me come up with various experiments.

I have used flow charts to express my thinking process and how I came about these variations.

After this I started to work on the ingredients for my variations.

I decided to make multiple variations at a time firstly because it was more systematic and easy for me to follow and secondly to limit the number of GUJIA’s I make. Coming from a family of “diet freaks” I knew I wouldn’t have much help in finishing what I made so I had to be very conscious of that we well. Thus the best option for me was to make multiple variations in a single batch.

VARIATION 1.

Shape- cube

Filling- ice cream

Coating - dalgona coffee

Process of making

1. I first began by cutting my vanilla ice cream into cubes. I very quickly realised that it was not easy and I had to prevent the ice cream from melting. So I chilled a steel plate in the freezer for a while and heated my knife on a stove to help me keep the ice cream cold and also cut it quickly. I then immediately kept it in the freezer where it would stay till night.

2. I then worked on the dalgona coffee. The idea of using dalgona coffee came to my mind thanks to the crazily popular trend. I also thought it would be a good match with the milky flavour of the vanilla ice cream. Instead of making it from scratch I used ready made dalgona coffee paste to save me some time.

3. At night I took my frozen ice cream cubes out of the freezer and wrapped them with the dough. I immediately popped it back into the freezer for the rest of the night.

At this point I realised that the heat of the kitchen was just not tolerable for a pampered- AC dependent person like me. That’s why I shifted my work station to my room where I was accompanied by my cat who unfortunately was not polite enough to ask for my permission before taking a few bites out of the ingredients, thus forcing me to re - make some stuff from scratch.

Variation 2

Shape - circle/ semi circle

Filling- Nutella

Coating- white chocolate

Process of making

1. This was a pretty straight forward process. For this I first bought Nutella from the store.

2. I used a measuring spoon to help give my dough a circular shape. In the beginning I had some difficulties figuring out the amount of filling but I got the hang of it by the third one.

3. I filled the Nutella inside, sealed the top with a paste of flour and water and then popped it in the fridge

Variation 3

Shape- rose shaped

Filling- coconut and condensed milk

Coating- coconut flakes

Process of making

1. I first mixed condensed milk with coconut. This made something known as coconut ladoo’s that I learned in my 4th grade cooking class.

2. I initially didn’t think of the rose shape. I just started wrapping the ladoo In random ways to see what I liked the most and I ended up with something that looked like rose.

3. then popped it in the fridge with the others to chill for the night

Bonus experiment

On tasting my coconut and condensed milk mixture my dad commented on how much it tastes like “Bounty” his favourite chocolate. So I made an additional one in a cylindrical - chocolate like shape and challenged myself to try and make it taste as close to a bounty as possible.

Initially I had though of using honey as one of my ingredients for the fourth experiment.

However while making the variations, I looked over at my fridge and saw something that made a bulb go off in my mind, pizza sauce.

This made me wonder, does gujia have to be sweet? Why can’t I make a savoury gujia.

This led me to my fourth variation, the pizza GUJIA

Variation 4

Shape- ravioli

Filling- pizza, cheese, tomato, potato and onion (basically a pizza inside a GUJIA)

Coating- fenugreek, asafoetida, flaky salt and maybe some cheese.

Process of making

1. I added pizza sauce, cheese spread, tomato, potato, onion in a bowl and mixed them together. I added some salt and grated mozzarella as well.

2. I cut the dough into squares, added some of my pizza filling, and then used a fork to seal the edges

3. I kept it in the freezer

MISTAKES.

I am a firm believer that a person learns best from his mistakes and I made a lot of them today. So I decided I’ll make a note of everything I did wrong and try to improve upon them.

Firstly I got scolded by my grandmother because I used way too many utensils than needed and also used the wrong sizes in many cases.

I spilled a lot of stuff and I’ll make sure to keep them in containers from now on rather than just using them straight out of the packet.

I was working too slow which is understandable since i don’t cook much but I would like to increase my pace of working

Being more organised. I will keep all my ingredients around me before I start as I annoyed my grandmother by constantly asking her for stuff.

LEARNINGS.

Though I didn’t learn much about cooking today since this was the stuff I already knew. I did learn how to change the temperature of my refrigerator thanks to the ice cream cubes. So that’s new for me!

Day 2

Day two was just about putting everything I did together on a plate. It was the most crucial part as it determined if all my efforts on day 1 will pay off.

I began the day by cutting my nails, as yesterday it became quite clear to me that my long nails are just gonna make the process more difficult.

I organised my work station and came up with a plan on how to garnish my dishes. Accordingly I bought out my crockery and washed them.

PLAIN GUJIA

This was quite simple and straight forward.

Process

1. I fried the gujia in some oil. I first heated the oil on high flame and after I was able to see the vapours, I reduced the heat down to sim. Following that I added my gujia.

2. I dipped the gujia in some sugar syrup and garnished with some chopped up nuts

VARIATION 1

Shape: cube

Filling: ice cream

Coating : dalgona coffee

Process

1. I first bought my ice cream cubes wrapped in dough out of the freezer. I then fried them and immediately put them back in the freezer to insure that the ice cream does not melt much

2. I topped it with some beaten up coffee paste. However I soon realised that it was a bit too bitter for me taste. So I decided to add milk to it. I was really messy and spilled it everywhere but the end result was delicious

VARIATION 2

Shape- semi circle

Filling - Nutella

Coating - white chocolate

Process

1. I bought out my Nutella filled domes, from the fridge and fried them in oil.

2. I then melted some white chocolate added some dark chocolate chips and dipped the domes in it.

VARIATION 3

Shape- rose shaped

Filling - coconut + condensed milk

Coating- grated coconut

Process

1. I bought out my roses from the fridge and fried them.

2. I added red food colouring to my grated coconut

3. I dipped my roses in some sugar syrup and then coated it with the coconut. I also made some paper leafs to bring a pop of colour to my dish.

This variation was my favourite and was also liked by my family members who rarely ever eat sweets, so that made me really happy.

VARIATION 4

Shape- ravioli

Filling - pizza filling

Coating- cheese spread, ajwain, parsley

Process

1. I fried my frozen pizza raviolis

2. I spread some cheese spread on the top, sprinkled some ajwain and added a few parsley leaves

Mistakes.

I was a bit messy when it came to the plating.

In order to record the process and take photos I had to touch my phone and lights again and again as a result I ended up making everything sticky.

Learning.

I learned how to fry food items.

I also learned how to plate food to make it look more attractive

DAY 3

While reading through my blog the other day, in order to check for some changes or errors I came across a line that I wrote on the very first day of the project. “I believe that If there is anyone capable of recreating the poison Apple from snow white, it would be me.” This caused something to trigger inside me. It made me ask myself “I said I could re create the poison Apple, what if I actually make it” I immediately starts sketching my ideas, and thus developed my very first dish, which I named “the poison Apple” inspired by Apple from Snow White.

I wanted my dish to tell a story. I want everyone eating or looking at it to feel like they are watching the scene from the movie itself. This would be difficult, but nothing that a bit of black magic can’t fix.

THIS WAS MY FIRST SKETCH FOR THE DISH

It consisted of the following components

1. The main dish which was the Apple filled with coconut and nutella

2. Brown sugar/gur/granola sand

3. Chocolate/caramel dome

4. The magic pot, which would consist of one of my experiments from the previous days, the ice cream gujia- dalgona - milkshake monstrosity.

THE APPLE

in order to make the Apple I kneaded some dough like I did for the rest of the experiments however I added some red food colouring to it.

Blending the colour with the food colouring proved really difficult. I had to work the dough a lot causing me to get multiple cramps, but it was worth it!

I then rolled the dough into a thin sheet and inserted it inside a Katori which I though would be the perfect mould for my Apple

I then filled it in with my coconut + condensed milk filling from the other day as well as Nutella, alternating both in layers.

I sealed the Apple from the top. However there were a few holes, in order to close them up, I rolled a few more thin and small pieces of dough, and attached them to the Apple using a paste of flour with some water.

I kept my Apple in the freezer to harden for the night.

I was really scared about my Apple breaking or losing its shape, but fortunately it all went well and in the end I had a beautiful red sphere.

I added a stem with the help of dark chocolate and painted the evil face with the help of a pain brush and a combination white chocolate and dark chocolate chips. I then kept it in the freezer to harden while I worked on the other components

CHOCOLATE/ CARAMEL DOME

I initially thought of making a chocolate netted dome that would go on top of the Apple. However after my multiple attempts failed (mainly due to the wrong choice of mould, not using any greasing agents, improper tempering of the chocolate, inability to remove it in one piece) I moved on to my plan B , the caramel.

After a quick scan through YouTube for caramel making tutorials I started the process.

I added 1 cup of sugar to 1/4 cup of water and I heated it on the stove until golden brown. This was probably the only time I followed any measurements during this entire project.

I then poured it on top of a bowl that I wrapped with butter paper.

I kept it in the freezer along with the Apple to harden for the night

Unfortunately this attempt also didn’t work out and I was unable to take it out in the shape of a dome.

I then went on to try again but failed once more.

In the end I had a bunch of broken caramel pieces. That’s when I decided to use it to make a sort of game of thrones, throne, kind of shape around the Apple.

THE SAND

I simply used brown sugar for this as the crunchiness of the sugar went along well with the softness of the coconut filling inside.

THE MAGIC POT

In the movie, the evil step mother dips the Apple in a magic pot. I wanted everyone who was eating the dish to see the story right in front of there eyes.

I used dough to make the shape of the pot, fried it and then coated it with dark chocolates to prevent any leaks.

I added my cube shaped ice cream gujia, along with milk inside this pot and topped with off with some dalgona coffee and red dyed coconut some of which was left from on of my earlier experiment.

PLATING.

I garnished everything with some dried flowers to symbolise the death of darkness of this delicious scene.

Day 4

After hearing about the next activity I was really excited to make my original dish for for my family. Having made it once I was well aware of every step and tried to be more cautious in order to avoid the mistakes I did the first time around. I was proud to have developed a dish of my own.

This is how u make the poison Apple:

Ingredients:

250g of flour

200 ml of oil.

50 grams of grated coconut

25 grams of condensed mil

100 grams dark chocolate

50 grams while chocolate

Nutella jar

1 cup sugar

Dalgona coffee/ beaten coffee paste

50 grams brown sugar

25 ml of milk

Time:

5 - 6 hours ( if you are a beginner like me)

Steps of preparation:

1. Prepare the dough : mix 250g of maida with 3 tsps of oil and mix well. Do the fist test (if u press the flour in ur fist it should hold its shape) if it holds the shape then sprinkle some water and knead it well until stretchy and elastic. Separate this dough into two equal parts. Dye one half with red food colouring. Wrap both in a wet Muslin cloth to prevent it from drying and store in the refrigerator.

2. Make the filling: mix 50 grams of grated coconut with 25 grams of condensed milk. Mix well until it forms a thick paste. Get some store bough Nutella.

3. Shaping: use a rolling pin to roll your red dough into a large sheet roughly 3mm thick. Use a desirable mould (I used a small katori) and place the dough inside it. Smooth out and crevices.

I used this tool for shaping my apple

4. Filling: put the coconut + condensed milk mixture and Nutella in alternating layers. Make sure not to over fill. Fill according to the size of ur mould and the dough. Always fill less than what u think is needed. Don’t fill all the way to the top.

5. Sealing: after filling wrap the dough around it he mixtures. Use a paste made out of maida and water to make the closing more secure.

6. Making the caramel: heat 1 cup of sugar with 1/4th of a cup of water on high heat. Do not stir. Once it turns yellow take it off immediately and pour it on top of a plate covered with some butter paper and oil. It should harden in 2-3 minutes. Break it into small pieces and keep aside.

7. Shaping the magic pot: use the uncoloured dough and shape it like a pot. Then store in the refrigerator.

8. Making the ice cream gujia: cut ice cream into small cubes then wrap it in some uncoloured dough. Immediately store it in the refrigerator to harden. It should be in the refrigerator for at least 5 hours before being fried.

9. Frying: heat 200 ml of oil on high flame until u see some steam. Then lower down the temperature to “sim”. Add a small piece of dough to the oil, if it floats on the surface then it’s ready. Add your Apple slowly from the side making sure not to splash the oil. Use a spatula to throw some oil on the part of the Apple that’s not inside the oil. This will make sure that the Apple is cooked enough to be turned without ruining the shape. Similarly fry the pot. First fry the bottom then turn it to the side. Take the ice cream gujia out of the fridge and fry it immediately. After taking it out store it in the refrigerator

10. Coating the Apple: use white chocolate to create a skull face to represent the poison Apple, you can also use a brush for this. Keep it in the freezer to harden.

11. Coating the magic pot: coat it with melted chocolate both on the inside and outside to prevent any leaks. Otherwise you might end up in a situation like the following. Store in the freezer to harden.

12. Filling the magic pot: add the ice cream gujia and milk. Top it off with some ready made beaten coffee paste (dalgona coffee) and sprinkle some grated coconut ( I dyed it red for presentation purposes).

13. Plating: sprinkle brown sugar to you plate like sand and place the apple on top. Add a dark chocolate stem.Place the caramel shards around the Apple. Place the magic pot drink on a separate plate and add a few dark chocolate pieces to compensate for the sweetness on the plate. Share and enjoy!

Living in busy family it’s usually hard to find time to spend with each other. But food is one thing that brings everyone together. We all enjoy the meals together and that’s the only time of the day we spend together. Serving this dish to my family made me extremely happy. I could tell they were surprised when they heard that I was the one who made it, as I am really not interested in cooking. There reactions were heart warming.

My dad said that he has never eaten anything like this before. My grandmother who was my mentor, judged my dish on various criteria’s and declared me as “pass”. My mother on the other hand said that my poison Apple tasted as dangerous as it sounded. It was fun to see there reactions and they all asked me to continue cooking as it’s an essential skill to learn.

i recorded there reaction and compiled it into a video:

From the beginning I knew there was a co-relation between cooking at designing. But for me Plating and presenting scrumptious food was the only designing part about cooking. However this project made me realise that design in cooking plays a role bigger than just shaping the dough and adding decorations.

I was able to able to connect my learning’s from cooking with my past experiences with design some of which were

1. Learning how to Correct my mistakes- usually when I am making an art work and I mess it up, I throw away the material and start again. However in case of cooking we have always been taught that we should not “waste” food. Thus, when faced with a situation where my experiment was a failure instead of throwing it away I came up with ways to fix it instead. The end result always had a “flavour” that a perfect- made according to plan- dish didn’t. And this is something I wanna incorporate in my future journey with designing.

2. Experimenting is the foundation- in the beginning when we were told to experiment, I didn’t take it seriously. Somewhere I felt like I already knew what the outcome would be, so why bother right? But I was totally wrong. While making my final dish many errors that I made and my learning’s from those mistakes came handy when those situations arose again. Like I knew how to handle the leaks in my poison Apple because it had already happened during my ice cream gujia experiment. This made me realise the importance of prototyping in design.

3. Positive and negative space- while plating my final dish, I was faced with a dilemma. My poison Apple looked very tiny compared to me very long plate. After thinking about this problem for a while, I remembered one of my learning’s from FVL, josh sir told me how the size of my dots had to be according to the size of my paper, and since I had more space I could add more dots. That’s when I made my “magic pot”. I considered my plate as a piece of paper trying to achieve the perfect balance between the negative and positive space. I was able to understand what josh sir said better after experiencing a practical example of it.

4. Patience- as someone who runs low on patience this project was extremely challenging. I was never someone who was able to do extremely detailed work because I would get fed up really easily. However incase of cooking u can not rush the process, u can’t increase the flame to cook the items faster as it will burn them. In the end I realised that the items cooked slowly turned out to be better than those cooked in a rush, and this is something I want to work towards improving and I believe this would also improve the quality of my art work in future.

This was a difficult project as it was very much out of my comfort zone. Shifting from the paper to the plate was tough but very rewarding. My hard work can be seen just by looking at my nails, which were perfectly painted during the first day but chipped during the last. This project created, what I believe is my “new found interest in cooking” and I’ll continue to learn more about design from my future creation.

FINAL FEEDBACK