QUEEN’S ROAD: With just a couple of days left for Christmas, Bangaloreans are busy doing some last minute cake and wine shopping. While popular bakeries and wine outlets are the first choice, there are also a handful of home bakers and wine specialists who have interesting products on offer. After a bit of research, we have come up with a list of places you can order from.
Sweet Talk in Fraser Town is a humble business run by a working couple. Shreeparvati Taravath, a BPO employee, bakes to de-stress after long hours at work, while her husband Varghese Philip, a stock market trader, does the packaging and sales. They specialise in cakes, jams and wines and cater strictly to orders only.
“We aim to make people happy through our products. We will never sell anything that we wouldn’t eat ourselves. If we say we use butter, we wouldn’t resort to margarine. We have even taken back what we sold on a few occasions because our clients weren’t satisfied with the products,” says Philip, adding that making money is not their goal.
“Everything we earn is spent on cooking utensils, ingredients and recipe books,” he says with a chuckle. The only marketing they do is through their Facebook page and word-of-mouth.
This week, they have on offer a few bottles of red grape wine, plum cake and a few varieties of chili and herb and jelly jam. The cakes are priced at `900 per kg, while a bottle of wine costs `650. For orders or further details, call 98866-27357.
Nithya Susan Sunil quit her job in finance four years ago to pursue her passion for baking. After doing a course in catering and taking up an internship at The Leela Palace, she started her own business at home. In a city like Bengaluru, which is teeming with home bakers, it is not easy for a young baker to make money, she says. “It took me a while to find my footing. I started baking for my friends at first. Then I began getting corporate orders and I started supplying desserts to restaurants. Now I have a decent clientele,” she explains.
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2014 has been a good year. I recently delivered a batch of Christmas hampers to a high-end resort in Coorg, and I have another one going out today,” she further says.
Nithya will also take orders for cakes and hampers after Christmas. The hampers come in three sizes and include eight items (strawberry milk chocolate eclairs, cranberry chutney tarts, bittersweet chocolate nut log, peppermint brownies, sausage spinach cheese bread / pesto garlic loaf, cheddar biscuits and cinnamon cookies box, plum cake and sticky toffee pudding) in different quantities depending on the size. Prices are as follows: small - `900; medium - `1,300 and large - `1,600. For orders, call 99867-06451.
Nemitha Prithvi, a resident of Sahakarnagar, has inherited her family’s secret recipe for wines and chocolates. Her almond chocolates are a hit, while she also has on offer betel nut, amla, starfruit and grape wines that are priced at `450 per litre. “My parents run a homestay in Chikkamagaluru and these wines are a specialty there,” says Nemitha. For orders, call 87629-90228.
Linsha Maria Joseph, senior engineer at Arris Technologies, runs Crumbs n Creams in CV Raman Nagar. Originally from Kottayam, Kerala, the 29-year-old started the part-time business six months ago. Apart from cakes for parties, birthdays and weddings, Linsha has a special range of plum cakes lined up for the festival season. “The dry fruits for the cakes were soaked in rum for six months. Baking them fills my house with an amazing aroma!” she says with a smile.
The plum cakes are priced at `950 per kg, while they are also available as cupcakes at `45 a piece. Other varieties include apple cinnamon, marble, walnut and banana walnut. Apart from cakes, Linsha also has in stock two-year-old red wine that is sold at `800 per bottle.