DRAMA IS THE MANTRA
Chef Kishi Arora, foodaholics.com
Designs are getting emotional and pictorially heavy. Metaphors and crazy symbols are in vogue. I am amazed to see how people want to bring their life or an important event in a kilogram of cake. There is this henna cake which most brides order during their mehndi function. They wish to replicate their henna, jewellery and lehenga designs all over it. A kid ordered a book cake for his mother with some messages on it. To make it look real, I gave it a tattered look. One of the craziest requests was to bake an Indian toilet-style cake using chocolate. Of course, it was done by an awareness group to inculcate hygiene consciousness.
Besides concept cakes, lesser-known indigenous ingredients are picking up. I prepared a cheese cake with chundo, a classic Gujarati sweet and a sour a mango pickle that is made with raw mangoes. It is tangy and sugary. People wish to bring their favourite herbs like thyme and mint in cakes. Surprisingly, a 10-year-old kid requested a cake made with polenta (cornmeal boiled as a porridge). So I prepared lemon polenta rosemary cake. People are familiar with lemon tarts but don’t associate it with cakes. Same goes with polenta which is usually eaten as a savoury dish, mostly with grilled meat. I combined rosemary for a zesty flavour.
FOOD IS lIKE FASHION
Chef Sanjay Bahadur, WelcomeHotel Dwarka
Fusion is taking a backseat as people want to go back to orthodox cakes with a huge retro revival. White flour is going out of fashion and chefs are bringing in other grains like millet and gram for their exceptional nutritional quality. Customers are conscious about their health and, therefore, know which ingredient doesn’t suit them. Most demand low-calorie variants. Recently, I prepared a cake for a diabetic client with gram, raisin and cashew nut.
SAlTY CAKES ANYONEIJ
Chef Devender Bungla, Hyatt Hotel
Salt and chilli are two ingredients that you can never imagine using in creamy and sweet cakes. But as people wish to experiment with their palate, chefs are giving a twist to traditional butter cakes. Recently, I prepared a chocolate caramel salty cake using rock salt (one per cent), sugar (25 per cent) and olive oil. It is a balanced dessert that gives a zing to your palate.
Also, there is emphasis on lighter and fresh cakes. Therefore, we source fruits from farms that have started growing exotic kiwi, blueberry and so on. The high point is that we use not just the fruit but its skin too. I prepared an orange cake by making a puree out of orange skin.