An Arabian Nights theme cake designed by Delhi’s The Sweet Boutique was complete with an edible, smoking hookah and harem girls; (above) The Kookie Jar repertoire includes cakes with sculptured Louis Vuitton handbags and Prada stilettos

The theme was Arabian Nights and the scene was perfect: soothing Arabian music, blinking lights, a smoke-spewing hookah and belly dancers in bright harem pants on a floor that was revolving under their bejewelled feet. But no, this wasn’t the rocking party venue, but a cake that had been ‘sculpted’ and ‘engineered’ for a party. The cake, which had guests gawking at it, stood 2ft high and weighed some 15 kilos. And yes, an engineer had to be roped in to help custom-build the tiny machinery that kept the four-dimensional cake smoking and revolving.

Cut to a wedding in Bangalore where the 5-tier wedding cake became the talk of the festivities. For Manish Gaur, director of training at the Institute of Baking and Cake Art (IBCA), Bangalore, the brief was clear: it had to be a grand wedding cake which would showcase traditional Indian elements. The brief came from an NRI couple who were tying the knot in India.

Gaur got a mehendiwali to ‘apply’ intricate mehendi patterns with chocolate on a turquoise blue fondant-base (a soft, pliable, sugar-based dough) cake that weighed 26kg. Vibrant orange lilies — totally edible — worked as bright accents. “The couple and the guests loved the cake and cherished it as a lovely wedding memory,” says Gaur.

If this isn’t enough to make your jaw drop, how about having the birthday girl’s (or boy’s) photograph transposed on the cake? It’s literally a cakewalk to get a photo of your choice transferred on edible frosting sheets using edible ink cartridges. These sheets are then placed on wet butter icing, ready to eat.

Welcome to a world where cakes aren’t just about cream and icing. They’re about mini sculptures that can cost Rs 30,000 a piece — shaped as your favourite monogrammed handbag (or pair of shoes), an animal, bird, gadget or anything you can imagine. And even Angry Birds cup cakes and Louis Vuitton stilettos that stand 2ft to 3ft high.

Delhi-based Kishi Arora creates 3D cakes and muffins for all seasons and occasions; (Above) The Institute of Baking and Cake Art, Bangalore, has introduced cakes with digital photo prints

The colours can keep pace with your wildest dreams. Just take your pick from edible raspberry pink, sunset orange, electric blue, sunshine yellow, lime green, black or blue. And for that touch of glamour how about a liberal dusting of colourful glitter or even golden and silver colour? Though, of course, the cake could set you back by as much as Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 per kilo or more, depending on the kind of work you want.

“Today, from a mother of a six-month-old baby to a bride-to-be, everyone wants spectacular cakes that are a far cry from the traditionally iced cakes from the neighbourhood bakery,” says Kandy, director, Culinary and Cake Decorating School (CCDS).

Like Kandy and Gaur, a number of cake artists are turning cakes into more than just droolworthy desserts. There are sculptural or 3D cakes and animated 4D cakes (that will be sound, light and even some steam). Or, you could go for digitally printed cakes. If you like to brighten things up, LED light strips can be attached to the main machinery.

Cake trends

“The sky is the limit when it comes to creating designs and shapes,” says Lovie Burman of Calcutta’s Kookie Jar.

Burman customises and creates cake sculptures in practically any shape and size. She reckons that this trend is catching on as people are travelling and getting to know about international cake trends. Apart from sculpting Louis Vuitton handbags and Prada stilettos, Burman has even done a spectacular 50kg cake in the shape of the Radio Mirchi logo. It had to be carried in five separate parts and assembled at the venue.

Delhi-based Nitin and Ruchika Khurana who run The Sweet Boutique, a confectionery shop in Delhi’s Greater Kailash, are trying to be a step ahead of the competition. They’ve recently introduced 4D cakes. For a child’s birthday party, they created a 10kg-cake based on the cartoon characters, The Smurfs. Nitin built a mushroom house with fondant and fitted a mini music player at the base (that played the sound track of The Smurfs) along with machinery which kept the house rotating.

The in-house engineer on the Khuranas’ team is adept at creating customised machinery depending on the size, shape and requirements of such sculpted cakes. “Our cakes are a work of art created by fusing engineering with creativity,” says Khurana.

Another Delhi-based, independent pastry chef and food consultant, Kishi Arora, a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America, does creative cakes and muffins for all seasons. With Diwali round the corner, her diya or lamp-shaped cup cake toppings are hotsellers while a few weeks ago it was the mehendi design cake that sold well for Karwa Chauth.

For those with a fetish for brands, she has created cakes with miniature branded products complete with their logos.

When Mumbai-based Natasha Silva gave up her banking job after her first baby, she turned a baker. Today, she runs a bakery from home called Eye Candy Cake and Cup Cakes, specialising in creating 3D designs, figures and cup cakes that are a rage at children’s parties (centre). There are baby faces for baby showers and birthdays, and life-like flowers made with gum paste or fondants for weddings. “The crucial part is to make the 3D figures neat and life-like,” says Silva.

Hotsellers

A sculpted doll cake by Delhi’s Culinary and Cake Decorating School

And what are the hottest cake trends? “These days everything goes — from 3D cakes with superior finishes to digital photo prints of any image printed on the cake. Fondant in cake decoration is the latest fancy,” says Gaur.

Some popular techniques, which facilitate sculpting and sugarcrafting the cakes, are using fondant, marzipan, gum paste and royal icing. While royal icing is a piped sugar cream used for designing floral decorations and borders using the piping technique, gum paste is a firm yet flexible dough, which can be rolled out into thin sheets to create floral blooms.

For those who love the flavour of almonds, marzipan is a tasty — but grainy and oily — paste, used to make edible animals and small flowers. On the other hand, fondant is a sugar-based dough, which can be shaped manually with the help of moulds, cutters and shapers.

Craft call

The 5-tier wedding cake from the IBCA came with chocolate mehendi designs and edible orange lilies

What’s given a shot in the arm to the concept of designer cakes? Perhaps the fact that women and many men want to upgrade their baking skills and create something more than eye-catching.

“Adding a new skill is always welcome,” says Gangtok based Swati Jain, who runs cake décor workshops called Sugarcraft India.

So, to learn the art of sculptural cake-making, it’s back to the school for many. There are several schools and culinary institutes offering courses (from basic to advanced) to baking enthusiasts to teach them everything from cutting and moulding delicate flowers to sculpting cakes in shapes like purses, shoes, gadgets or even animals.

The IBCA offers courses like a Diploma in Baking, Confectionery & Cake Art to specialised courses like its Cake Decoration Course, Gateaux, Torte, Pastry & Wedges Commercial Course, Home Baking Course and Eggless Home Baking. The institute has about 40 students enrolled.

At CCDS there are courses that teach you how to create flowers from pulled sugar (sugar which has been heated and specially handled so that it turns glossy and smooth) to designing animal shapes from blown sugar (sugar that can be blown into shapes of animals or flowers). “Cake pops are the newest craze,’’ says Kandy. The basic introductory cake decoration course costs Rs 7,500, while an advanced course costs Rs 10,000, both for three sessions.

Jain conducts workshops in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore and will be conducting the classes in Calcutta between November 18 and November 20. Her three-day sugar-crafting course costs Rs 14,500. It focuses a lot on flower-making. On the third day of class, her students take home a sugar-crafted cake they’ve baked.

On the other hand, the CCDS operations are large-scale as it has a baker’s warehouse stocked with the ingredients, tools and gadgets required for cake-making that have been sourced from around the world. With the tools readily available, some students even harbour dreams of opening their own bakeries.

Tool talk

Though most bakers import their tools, cutters and even some ingredients from UK and USA, there are a number of edible colours and ingredients available in the Indian market as well.

Silva says that India has come a long way as today there are host of items like decorative cutters to 3D moulds and pans that one can arm one’s self with. For cake art, Jain uses gel-based colours from brands like Wilton, Americolor and Sugarflair.

For icing, one can select from liquid, powder/ paste-based or oil-based colours. “While liquid or water-based colours are used mainly for domestic consumption, the powder-based ones are used primarily for commercial purposes. Using the liquid colours in large amounts for a huge quantity of dough or sugar paste might make the consistency too thin,” says Gaur. The powder-based colours keep the consistency balanced.

The paste-based colours are thick and concentrated, which can be kneaded into gum paste, sugarpaste, marzipan or even on butter-cream. Oil-based colours are used mainly for colouring chocolate because an oil base mixes well with chocolate. You can get a white chocolate colour spray or even a red or green or any colour you want to pick for a chocolate cake.