Flaunt your cake and eat it too

A mechanical engineer for ten years, Bijay Thapa’s introduction to the world of baking was when he quit his corporate job to pursue his love for design and food. A self-taught cake designer and decorator, Bijay is all set to change the way people look at wedding cakes in the city with his workshop.

Bijay Thapa

Cakes are no longer off-the-shelf fares for special occasions any longer. With themed weddings and associated occasions demanding perfection with regards to décor and fashion, cakes have followed suit and show off exotic Indian designs and embellishments on them. Bijay’s workshop — Shringar — will help bakers create Indian design techniques like gota patti, zardosi and brocade detailing, making the cake fit for the Indian bride.

Bijay entered the market to find a serious dearth of good cake designers who understood the Indian sentiment he shares, “Everyone was aping the western style of wedding cakes. Our weddings are full of colours and aesthetics, but the same does not reflect when it comes to wedding cakes. I was sick and tired of the out-of-fashion western ornamentation on our cakes and there was a need to bring a change.”

The workshop will focus on the Indian aesthetics. “We design cakes with mogra, gulab, zardosi, gotta patti and brocade designs to match the wedding theme. There was a lack of understanding in the art and science of cake decorations and that is what I aim to teach at the workshop,” he explains.

Maintaining harmony between texture and taste, and finding the right balance is important, “Baking is an art and works with certain principles. It is not true that what is good looking won’t be tasty; it’s all about learning the right proportion and emulsions. In India baking is all about copying, you show the baker a copy and he will replicate the same for you. But this is not how it should work. Originality in designs is an important factor, which is often missing,” he says.

Bijay takes over four days to bake these pieces and the prices start from Rs 3,000 for a kg and go up to Rs 25,000 depending on the size. “Often baking is taken up by people as a hobby, so there is no one in particular who can teach bakers the art of ornamentation and embellishments. We use edible metallic colours, edible silver/ gold foil, and sugar pastes to achieve the desired results. We have also tied up with studios to replicate the design on the lehenga and cast moulds to replicate it on the cake and add lustre,” he reveals.

Cakes are often made not keeping the Indian wedding theme intact because they are replicating western weddings. “The cakes have to match the occasion and shouldn’t be out of context. In India, people do not understand the value of labour and end up haggling about the price. It takes a lot of effort to finish these designs and there are times when we have to specially cast moulds and designs for these cakes to add that touch of sweetness for the special occasions,” he says.