Dessert lovers, designer cakes are here

"Cakes which are always in demand by all groups of people are fun to make but at the same time it requires a lot of effort and also mind work because repeating same ingredients, shape and all the more colour eventually tends to be boring," says Chef Arun Diwakkar, from a star hotel in Noida.

Chef Arun had won the three-tier cake competition at an international food festival held in the city recently. The theme for his prize winning cake was 'western musical wedding cake', which he completed in 15 days and that was completely made to resemble music instruments and sported chocolate music notes carved out of it.

"It is my first time in the competition and also in the cake making and feels great to come out as a winner amongst so many highly seasoned chefs," he says. The festival also witnessed seasoned chefs battle it out for cake baking, decoration and plating awards. Among the first timers was 17 year old Nitin Khurana. Owner of a sweet boutique, Khurna says, "Designing a cake is my passion and I do it out of my interest for it and not for any commercial purpose. My first priority is my clients interest and their preference."

"The kind of cakes that we design are unique with intricate detailing done with gold and silver which has become a fad these days," he says. "One of our speciality is that we design '4D' cases, which

is not available very easily in the country. Other major designs that we do include light and sound cakes, seven to six tier cakes which in itself is a tough job," he says.

Khurana claims he has "even got a chance to be associated with celebrities like Priyanka Chopra, Ranbir Kapoor and Salman Khan for whom we designed cakes to celebrate success of their movies, on their request."

While the trend of designer cakes seems to have taken off the designs themselves keep changing constantly. "Two or three years ago, cakes of designer labels was in so much demand but now the fad is no more to be seen," says a baker who prefers to be called a cake artiste.

Radhieka Mittal, who runs a cake shop here feels that Delhi has over the years evolved in their taste for cakes. From a baby's 'annaprasana' to the grand wedding cakes, Mittal says she has a bite of the cake markets here. "The raw material for customised cakes is far from being available in India. The edible colours, glitters and markets have all been imported.

So it adds to the extra cost, which customers are ready to pay ," says Mittal who claims to have designed cakes for celebrities. Prices of the cakes start from Rs 1,500 per kg and can run

into several hundreds.

"The fad these days is of edible flowers which gives a real feel with orchids and roses. Pearls are popular for almost all occasions but specifically 25th anniversaries or birthday celebrations and so on," she says. "Cake designing is like a painting, which is different all the time we use our brush, but the paints that we use are all the more the same" she says.