We’re a fancy lot that would prefer personalising just about anything. So when you can get your monogram tailored onto your towel, why not personalise your sweet meats either when gifting or buying for yourself. Well, some Hyderabadi’s have realised the business potential and are offering their services.
Popping up in the baking industry, we find pastry chefs, home chefs and even a special effects professional who have all trained their guns on the growing demand of baked goods, viz., cupcakes.
From customised cupcakes to wedding cakes and even cakes for proposal, there’s never been such a baking fest in Hyderabad.
The name’s Zoey
For 31 year-old Poonam Maria Prem, baking was all about the final product being a visual treat. Being a visual effects designer (she even worked on the Oscar-award winning Life of Pi), perhaps she owes her attention to detail and penchant for visual spectacle to her previous profession. But baking, it turns out, was her calling.
Named after her four year-old daughter, Zoey’s Bakehouse went official four months ago, though Poonam has been providing her services on the side-lines of her regular profession for the past seven years. Talking about finally taking the plunge, she says, “If I didn’t do it then, I wouldn’t have done it ever. Juggling two jobs was becoming too much. It started off as just birthdays but now if it’s not weddings, then it’s proposals! I had to quit if I wanted to do this properly.”
Despite enjoying a decade long career in the special effects industry, baking became her passion. “I was inspired by bakers like Ron Ben Israel, an Israeli pastry chef and the executive chef and owner of Ron Ben-Israel Cakes in New York City. I usually start my day by checking out his work first thing in the morning,” she says. Poonam has over the years nurtured her baking talent to creating fondant figurines. Made entirely of sugar, these can be eaten as well. “The idea is that you can even eat the decoration. So, I made sure that everything on the cake was edible.” From creating tiny musical instruments like harmoniums and violins, to human figures, cars and flowers, Poonam’s speciality is in making customised cupcakes, where each bite comes with a fondant figurine. “I’m growing as a baker everyday and that’s what I love about my new job,” gushes the baker who wants to start conducting workshops as well. “I want to set a bench mark for custom cakes and cupcakes in the city and I want to break the myth that they are available only abroad,” she explains. Priced at an average
`70 per piece.
Details: 89785 55664; PBEL City, Near Gachibowli
Sprinkles Construction Inc
Being an architect and interior decorator wasn’t enough for Unnati Pingle. So after experimenting on her family for about a decade, she launched Sprinkled Up a year ago. Learning to bake simply by watching and observing, for her it may have just been another architectural design that she had to construct. Youtube was her mentor and online recipes her study material. But the true test was experimenting with different flavours by baking her cake and eating it too. So what drives someone to launch a start-up like Sprinkled Up?
“I had a bad experience with a baker and that is what made me kick-start this,” explains the 31 year-old. As a mother of two, she knows the importance of presentation.
“I enjoy decoration, love to be precise and for me every cupcake has to be picture perfect. Plus, I want to be known as the architect who bakes,” she asserts.
Over the years Unnati has perfected her craft and has baked a variety of themed cupcakes like princesses, candy-land, cartoon characters and garden themes.
“People are conscious about what they eat, so I mostly make mini cupcakes,” she says of her bite-size cupcakes.
Her speciality flavours are the Tiramisu and her Summer in a Cup (orange flavour) cupcakes.
Priced at `40 per piece for the mini cupacakes and `100 per piece for the regular size.
Details: 99590 20118;
Road 50, Jubilee Hills
‘Concu’ special
A fascination in baking ingredients led to Sahil Taneja ditching his degree in Biotechnology and going into hotel management with a specialisation in baking. From his experience of working at pastry kitchens in London, the 29 year-old launched Concu in May last year in the city with the aim of customising just about everything.
“My cupcakes are different; I do a mousse filling which is less sweet but adds more flavour,” explains the pastry chef.
The name Concu, which is French for ‘crafted’ or ‘designed’, is a reflection of Sahil’s motto of creativity and attention to detail. His menu of cupcakes include an array of unique flavours like rich chocolate ganache, mocha, green apple with cinnamon, cheesecake and more.
And his clients ask for an even bigger variety of themes when it comes to ordering -- Sahil has made minions (from the animated movie Despicable Me), a wedding, an aquarium and of course more comic characters.
Calling the city’s sudden interest in customised cupcakes as “a fashion food that migrated from the West”, the young baker hopes to cater to that with just a choice in flavours, more than designs. Nevertheless, presentation is a key focus as well and Sahil experiments with colours and shapes, besides designs and flavours, aimed at pleasing his customers. “I want to expand my business to other cities in the coming years,” he shares of his future plans.
Macaroons are this baker’s speciality.
Prices begin at `50 per piece.
Details: 99858 00031; Road 36, Jubilee Hills