Sealed With Cake

What’s a wedding without melt-in-the-mouth sugary delights? For Kajal Karni Bajaj, owner and cake artist, Sugar Blossoms Cake Studio, it wasn’t always about oven mitts and baking tins. The Fashion Institute of New York graduate enrolled at the Bonnie Gordon School of Confectionary Arts only after her daughter’s first birthday. There has been no looking back since. Her team recently prepared the wedding cake (a five-tier cake and 400 cupcakes) for Prince Lakshyaraj Singh of Mewar (Prince of Udaipur) who recently got married to Nivritti in Bhubaneswar and Puri. “For one client, who was having a Jodha-Akhbar theme wedding, we did a seven-tier cake to go with the theme and the jewellery that the bride was wearing,” says Bajaj. “Other wedding cakes have depicted the various stages of the relationship, starting from their schools, universities, where they met or where the proposal happened.” Some of the favourite wedding cake flavours are vanilla, lemon, and chocolate; however red velvet cakes are catching up. Fondant decorated cakes at Sugar Blossoms start at ₹3,500 per kilo while wedding cakes start at ₹4,000 per kilo. However, it is much more cost-effective to choose a beautiful one- or two-tier cake placed on a tall cake stand instead of having a three to seven-tier cake. “It can be stacked with cupcakes or other desserts surrounding or cascading along it. Another idea is to have risers between the tiers to give the appearance of a tall cake without actually using icing or cake to increase the height,” says Bajaj. Pro tip: Make sure you ask for a cake-tasting session. “Nothing is worse than cutting the cake on the day of the wedding and hating the way it tastes,” says Bajaj. If the wedding cake has multiple tiers, you can also choose multiple flavours.

No mountain is too high for Lavonne in Bengaluru, especially when it comes to a cake for your big day. “Once, we had a customer who requested a superhero theme wedding cake, which is pretty cute, where the groom topper is a man with a Batman head cap,” says Joonie Tan, cake artist, Lavonne. “We actually like it when clients provide as much information as possible about the details of the wedding, like the invitation card, wedding dress design, and décor, to get an idea of the setup of the big day.” Lavonne’s elegant cakes have made their way into many high-profile weddings. “If a three-tier wedding cake is on your mind, it needs to be a minimum of 12 kilos,” she says. At ₹2,500 per kilo, you can expect to pay ₹30,000 for your wedding cake from Lavonne, which is a patisserie and baking academy rolled into one. Needless to say, if you are in Bengaluru and are a baking enthusiast or proud owner of a sweet tooth, you would want your wedding cake only from here.

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Pro tip: “I would advise the couple to do thorough research on the designs before meeting the cake artist,” says Tan. “This gives a clear idea to the cake artist to understand the design required.”

Deliciae patisserie Belgian chocolate, red velvet, salted caramel, and Valrhona chocolate… What’s not to love about Bunty Mahajan’s Luxury Collection wedding cakes? The scrumptious cakes in exotic flavours, priced at ₹2,500 per kilo onwards, are just what you need to floor the guests at your big fat Indian wedding. Launched at the Four Seasons Hotel in September 2013, the idea came about after noticing that most wedding cake designs are made from reference images, which involved little or no creativity. Mahajan, who has been trained at Le Cordon Bleu, wanted to introduce designs that were unique, elaborate, and most importantly, stunning. Things are set in motion after a consultation session to understand what the client likes, and Deliciae suggests designs and colours accordingly. “We customise each cake as per the clients’ requirement, in terms of the number of tiers, flavours, colours, type of flowers, stenciling, and the cake toppers.” Salman Khan, Hiranandanis, Singhanias, Hindujas, Godrejs, Ambanis, Poonam Soni, Kapil Sharma, and Pankaj Udhas are some of Deliciae’s esteemed clients.

Pro tip: “It is important to see a variety of wedding cakes, with different colour combinations, flowers, toppers and the like,” says Mahajan. “Once you see a number of designs, you will immediately understand what type of a wedding cake you would want.”