BENGALURU: A bottle of hand santiser, face mask and handwash-- all of these which have become everyday essentials are finding their way onto artisanal cakes. And bakers are catering to those celebrating quarantine birthdays by creating corona-themed cakes. Zara Ahmed was surprised when she got a request for a corona-themed birthday cake, post the first lockdown in March. This order left her both amused and puzzled, wondering how to go about this unusual request. “Not having come across such a request previously, I came up with my own idea of creating a cake with a boy wearing a mask,” says Ahmed about her themed cake, a video of which went viral. “I put out the making and had a ‘Go Corona’ song in the background,” says the Benson Town-based baker, who makes the cakes with both cream and fondues.
While this was novel during the lockdown, such cakes are catching up on popularity. Now having made seven-eight such cakes, Ahmed says her favourite was one of a girl sitting in the centre with only wishes post its of dos and don’ts – all of which signify a quarantine birthday. The cakes are priced between`1,200 and `2,200.
With much detailing involved, like ‘the making of hand sanitiser bottles, getting the exact fold of the mask, or even getting the face of the virus’, bakers say herein lay the challenge. “Although I have been customising cakes for five years, this was a new theme for me. Getting the intricate details right were difficult,” says Seema Punjabi, aka Sugar fairy. Punjabi, who has made a couple of such cakes.
Bakers are looking forward to this challenge as a way to experiment and improvise their creations. Mamatha BJ, who has been baking since past 15 years, has made a corona-themed cake with a teasing face of the virus on it. “Although we know the art of making different designs as a professional baker, it’s always good to come across themes which get you thinking out of the box,” says Mamatha.