Flour, fondant and edible gum fill in for pencils, watercolours and oils as ‘cake artist’ Anna Samuel’s dining table becomes her canvas. Her deft fingers knead, pleat and sculpt till the likes of Tinkerbell, Ariel, Nemo and Lightning McQueen, bumblebees, roses, and carnations, come alive in 3D, all in delectable detail. That’s why Anna’s cakes are “edible art”, a feast for the eyes as well as for the senses.
The enterprising architect-turned-home baker, who runs Anna Bakes out of the kitchen in her apartment at Kuravankonam, has quietly been making a name for herself with her skill in creating gourmet 3D cakes. “Earlier, cake decoration in the city was done with fresh cream, butter cream or royal icing. Now, it’s becoming all about fondant, a type of icing, the pliable texture of which allows us to create highly detailed decorations. Fondant, gum paste, food colouring are all now readily available in the city,” explains Anna.
It all started with a passion for baking and a request from a friend for a wedding anniversary cake to gift to his wife. “It was a simple heart shaped cake covered with butter cream roses,” recalls the 27-year-old, who grew up in Dubai and moved to the city following her marriage. Soon orders started coming in, through word of mouth and via Anna Bakes’ Facebook page, and she found herself with a viable business on her hands. “I attended a three-day cake decorating class to pick up a few techniques and then it was all about trial and error. Nowadays, I stick to fondant and only do butter cream and fresh cream cakes on special request. Working with fondant in our climate is challenging because it melts quickly in the heat,” says Anna. Ideally, it takes her about three to four days to complete an order and as such she takes only a couple of orders a week. “The actual baking of the cake takes only a few hours, but sculpting fondant and/or gum paste that goes over the cake takes up a lot of time. I am a stickler for perfection and I pay a lot of attention to detail to get that perfect look. If, for example, there are 10 bumblebees on a cake, then they all must look exactly the same. Or, if there are figurines of a bride and groom on a wedding cake, they must look as real as possible, heads, necks, arms, legs, et al,” she explains.
The most unusual request that Anna has been asked to create is a birthday cake in the image of a gas stove! “Come to think of it, I’ve also done one in the shape of a gas cylinder. Recently, I did a ‘kappa-meen curry’ birthday cake, which resembled a platter with steamed kappa, fish curry and karimeen fry! I also get a lot of requests for risqué cakes for birthdays and bachelor/bachelorette parties. Another favourite of customers is cakes featuring bikes such as Royal Enfields, Ducattis…They are particularly very difficult to make because there are hundreds of small components that go into the replica of the bikes. Children’s cakes, meanwhile, are always fun and colourful and have varied themes, mostly inspired by cartoon characters,” says Anna, who also started the concept of catering a ‘dessert table’ for events. “In such instances, apart from the cake, there will also be cupcakes, cake pops, cookies and the like, all on the same theme, complete with matching cupcake wrappers, top ups and pop outs,” she explains.
Anna’s favourites, though, are wedding cakes. “I get to play around with techniques on them. For instance, ruffles and lace in fondant are a new fad for wedding cakes. That reminds me, tastes in the city have somewhat been spoilt by the practise of using ‘dummy’ tiers on wedding cakes. I am not fond of it and insist that my customers go with actual cake tiers. The effort that goes into making and decorating one tier is more or less the same for a three or four tier cake. Also, I try to never repeat designs. Where’s the fun in that? After all, it’s not only about client satisfaction; it’s about satisfying my creativity too. I am most happy when I am creating something totally new,” says Anna.
Clients get to choose from five flavours, namely vanilla, red velvet, butter rum, chocolate and orange, with 2kg being the minimum. “Chocolate and butter rum are best-sellers. Of late, red velvet with cream cheese filling is also quite popular,” she says. How sweet.
