JOIN USFor nine-year-old Yash Vihaann V K, cooking is not an unwelcome chore. The third standard student of VIBGYOR High, Marathahalli, was so enamoured by his mother's activities in the kitchen that he is now a budding chef himself.
"I started my culinary journey at the age of four after watching my mother in the kitchen. I used to help her in small ways by peeling potatoes or cracking eggs. Slowly, my interest grew and I started trying out things on my own," says Yash.
He now has his own YouTube channel named 'Yummy Treats with Yash', which he says is all about inspiring other children to cook with a compilation of easy D-I-Y recipes. Here too, he has been inspired by his mother, Padma Vinod, who herself has a YouTube cookery channel.
"I saw her channel and the kind of things she posted there. After I was fairly confident about my culinary skills, I asked her if I could have my own channel. I asked her why I had to post my videos in her channel. She thought about it for some time and then made a channel for me," he says.
"Out of all the dishes I have made, my favourites are milk poha, chicken fried rice and the one-minute chocolate mudcake. My friends have tasted the chocolate fudge I made and they loved it."
Talking about her son's interest, Padma says, "Initially I thought it would be a passing phase but he was really keen. He would ask me things like the difference between certain ingredients, the method of preparation of certain dishes and even questions like the difference between 'garam masala' and other 'masalas'. When he would see me preparing something in the kitchen, he will be like 'Do you need help? Can I do something? Okay, let me stir this for you. I will do this while you take care of something else.'
"From all this, I gauged he was genuinely interested. He loves eating and trying out new things and recipes. He also loves watching cookery channels and going through my recipe books. Best of all, he likes to clean the dishes also (laughs). There was a channel where they taught the kids that it is not only about cooking but also about cleaning up the mess and he has been following it to this day," she adds.
Ingredients
( Makes 12 muffins)
* 1 egg
* 2 cups all purpose flour/maida
* 1 cup granulated white sugar
* 3/4th cup chocolate chips
* 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1 cup plain yogurt (curd)
* 1/2 cup milk
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon Vanilla essence
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
Method
* Crack the egg into a bowl.* Add vanilla essence to the egg.* Using an electric beater, beat the egg along with the vanilla essence well. If you do not have an electric beater, you can use a manual (hand) whisker also.n Next, add the oil, milk and curd (wet ingredients) to the mixture.* Whisk the mixture until smooth.* Grab a large bowl and add the flour, sugar, cocoa powder and baking power (dry ingredients).* Using a spoon or a whisker, gently mix all the dry ingredients together.n* Now pour the wet ingredient mixture into the dry ingredients bowl.* Gently combine the wet ingredients + dry ingredients together using a spatula or by running an electric beater. Do not beat the batter too much; it should be slightly lumpy.* Using a ladle or a spoon, fill the muffin cases up to three-fourth with the batter.* Sprinkle lots of chocolate chips on the muffin. You can also mix in some chocolate chips in the muffin batter if you like.* Arrange the muffin cases on the baking tray* Pre-heat the oven to 200 Degree C and bake the muffins for about 20-25 minutes.