Being an army housewife means to live in the available resources- more appropriately  to live in limited resources. My mom , like many army men wives, made the most out of it. One of the wonder products out of her kitchen was the Marble cake that she cooked in a pressure cooker! Why? Because she didn’t have the fancy oven with top grills and temperature settings-just a nice pressure cooker that she reserved for baking. What came out of this simple equipment was enough to delight the guests, as well as her children. Marble cake was ALWAYS available at our place when we were growing up. The smell of freshly baked cake would linger in the air – a smell that is part of our childhood memories.

I was actively part of the baking process- standing with Ami while she whipped the eggs and sugar. Let me admit, the only incentive  to sit through the cooking session was to lick the leftover chocolate batter! There was a simple  unsaid rule-if you sat through with ami while she made the cake- you earned the leftover chocolate batter.  It was eggy batter  but meant to us more than the best chocolate in the world. There was always a small fight over who would get the leftover batter. The winning argument was ‘I spent most time with Ami while she was baking!’

As soon as the cake was ready, half of it would vanish. One slice a child, whereas one of us would succeed in getting even two! This was our snack for the longest time. If ever hungry, at any time of the day or even night- our answer was to find the cake tin and take out a slice!

Baking in pressure cooker sounds ‘o-so-weird’ now but trust me it can still make a perfect spongy Marble cake. Over the weekend, i used ami’s pressure cooker to make my new favorite  Banana-Walnut- Cinnamon bread. In the same almost 25 years old pressure cooker! It turned out as good as it did in my fancy oven!

This is a magical recipe or so i believe.