“Let them eat cake,” the French princess Marie Antoinette is reported to have declared when she was told the peasants couldn’t afford bread any longer. Used to mock the rich for their ignorance of the plight of the poor, this falsely attributed phrase also shines a spotlight on this age old confection of the kings.

We have always found cakes as part of every local baker’s display, at every street corner in Pakistan, but the humble cake has come miles since its plain cousins made their appearance on tea trolleys. Although most segments of society still prefer to celebrate with the locally made sweetmeats, cakes are extremely popular and fast taking over the nation with a candy-infused storm. In fact, it seems that special occasions are being concocted in order to be able to eat cake. No one had heard of a wedding or baby shower a few years ago and now they cannot be celebrated without the centrepiece —yes, you guessed it, the cake.

Sana Gohar, one of the modern vendors of cakes who takes orders online for her shop, FoSho Cake Walk, says, “The new inventions in cake-making are the flavours. The most popular flavour is Nutella, following which are the Mars, Kitkat, Malt and Galaxy. Fondant cakes are the hottest invention these days, which is basically sugar paste. Customers are extremely bold in their choices and want to try new flavours, especially our youth. Another popular trend is theme based decorations. People are getting special cakes made for anyone from babies to their grandparents these days.”

Have your specialised cake and eat it too

Some of these sweet delights are so intricately designed that it seems a waste to run a knife through them and gobble them up. Extremely talented hands are putting their creativity on show through these desserts to die for.

Haleema of Cakes.pk says, “Cake designs have changed drastically, now it’s more of an ‘art’ than a simple dessert. Over the years, new flavours have been introduced, new techniques have been incorporated to make the cake super soft from inside, while the exterior has the potential to make jaws drop. Celebration cake is way more than just a cake now, it’s more of a masterpiece, a piece of art that takes the limelight. Plus you can eat it too, what more could you want?”

There was a time when all we did was drop by at our local bakers and pick up one of the pre-made items on display. These were generalised versions in all sizes. A design meant how the baker had decided to lay the blobs of icing and how many cherries / sprinkles he had hastily placed on each of these blobs. The only originality we could add to our cake was the message. We asked the guy behind the counter to write with the jam based icing and even those were limited to the size of the space we had between the so-called patterns on the cake. Cakes are taken much more personally nowadays. Unique is the catch phrase when it comes to saying what you want through your baked surprise.

“Centrepiece cakes and cupcakes are a trend that was not around 20 years ago, and cake-pops were definitely not on the radar. Cupcakes were not elegant enough for a serious occasion like a wedding and were more likely to be found at bake sales and children’s birthday parties. Cupcakes have gained popularity because they can be anything required by a theme or event. They make multiple flavours easy to be made and can be topped by flowers, cut outs and pretty swirls of icing that reflect the colour scheme of the event. Centrepiece cakes are equally pretty and can be cut to serve individually as the dessert at the table it graces.” says Koyal Ahmed who has been making personalised cakes for her clients for some years now.

“As compared to earlier times, we have a lot of cake varieties now, not only in terms of decoration but also flavours,” says Rabia Rehman of ‘Ridiculously Sweet’. She has been making cakes for four years. All over the world there are different decoration methods being used such as fondant, butter cream, glaze and whipped cream. Today fondant and butter cream are the most popular ingredients of decoration because of their colours and their malleability which the decorator uses to make creative and personalised designs. Modern day cake making is an absolute art. Different 3D and 2D designs are used in fondant and butter cream. The cakes previously made used simple butter cream and whipped cream designs. Modern days cakes are realistic and an absolute eye candy,” People have become demanding and will either design the cake themselves or expect their baker to give them a most original spin on their sentiments that is then translated into icing material and piped on to their attention-grabbing cake. There are some popular bakeries that require you to order a week in advance to truly be able to capture your unique message and their prices range from 2,000 to 4,000 rupees per pound, depending on the flavour of your cake. A healthy trend is that there are now many more online options if you are looking for the wow-factor for your party guests. Intense competition means not only a juggle for a better bargain but that you should take your time in looking for the most talented cake designer to do your bidding.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, July 24th, 2016