It is a tradition at my home to get a Cake during Christmas / New Year every year… Not for any religious / celebratory purpose but rather because every single Bakery pulls out all the stops during that time and have available their best Cakes and special options that are otherwise not available during the rest of the year… So, its usually one cake that we get within the week from Christmas to New Year 🙂 So, this time, close to Christmas, we got a Plum Cake with Fondant Icing from our favourite bakery i.e. Santha Bakery but unfortunately it turned out to be a disaster… So, after me and my parents gave an earful to them, this time, we decided to try another one and thats when I noticed the rise of Home Bakers just like Home Chefs and so decided to try one of those options and on a quick enquiry in the KOT group, I got the recommendation to check out Cake Craft Trivandrum, which is owned and operated by the Home Baker Dr. Saluja Riyas… Cake Craft Trivandrum as I was informed, provides custom-made cakes as required by the customer…
The kind of Cakes that we like are those that have some complex flavours to them and so as what maybe quite obvious, the plain old sponge is the last thing that we like to see 🙂 So, had a quite a long chat with Dr. Saluja yesterday about the various options of cakes available and among the options, there are three kinds of cakes she does as a base, which are the Dry Fruits cake, Nuts Cake and the Carrot Cake… When I heard that, I had an idea which I conveyed to her and that was to actually combine the three and make a Carrot Cake with Dry Fruits and Nuts in it and then mildly spice it up with like Cinnamon, Nutmeg, etc… She said she had not done that before but is willing to try making it if I want to (if I’m willing to take the risk that is 😀 ) as she was a bit skeptical on whether it will work… But I on the other hand after a bit of thought chose to be a bit adventurous and optimistic and decided to try this as an experiment… [To be completely honest, felt that it wouldn’t be as bad as the Christmas cake we had]…
Regarding the Icing, we prefer the Hard / Fondant Icing and Dr. Saluja informed me that she usually does Honey based Fondant and I suggested she try doing it with Chocolate to which she informed me that she is not sure and suggested that I let her try with Vanilla which I agreed… She however suggested that I have the Fondant only as the covering for the Cake and go for the Butter Cream frosting in-between the layers as otherwise with fondant everywhere, it can be too sweet to handle… I agreed to it and so, thats the cake we got this time: A 3-Layer Carrot, Dry Fruits and Nuts cake with Butter Cream frosting between them and having a Vanilla Fondant cover… The Cake arrived the very next day i.e. today on Jan 2nd evening as shown in the pics below… 🙂
First of all, we loved how the Cake looked as can be seen in the pics above… Its a 1kg Cake with quite beautiful decoration consisting of Flowers and Leaves made with some of the Fondant… The colors look quite bright and vivid… The Cake rests of a nice golden tray and has a golden coloured ribbon around at the base, I guess, to make it look seamless with the tray…
The Fondant was not as dry and hard as I expected it to be and in-fact found it to be a bit wet i.e. sweaty… Texture-wise, it felt like midway between the usual hard fondant icing and the butter cream frosting… In addition to that we found a chewing gum like after taste to the Fondant, which also appeared to have have a hint of peppermint in its taste… So, I wish it were harder and didn’t have that aftertaste… But I don’t think its really a bad thing because it really didn’t affect the overall experience of the cake and my mom for instance, told me she loved that aftertaste… Like I said before, this cake was made to be having 3 layers of the Carrot-Dry Fruits-Nuts cake with Butter Cream frosting between the layers as can be seen in the pics below… Because the fondant ended up being soft and because the cake itself was very soft, it was very easy to cut the cake with the plastic cake knife that was provided…
Now coming to the cake itself, I must say that the little experiment actually worked big time… In fact, I can go as far to say that this is definitely the best tasting take I have had in quite a long time and so, loved every bit of it… The Cake has stuck a perfect balance between being incredibly light and airy and being quite rich at the same time… Another thing I liked really well is that all the flavours were incredibly well balanced… I must confess that being suffering from a bit of cold, my tastebuds are in fact not working in full swing and so I’m sure the cake tastes at-least twice as much better than how I am describing here… But at the same time, its not that bad that I can’t taste anything at all (which has happened before)…
Anyways, I could detect flavours of the Carrot element in the cake as that seems to the base here and along with it, I could detect the taste of Cashews and Walnuts… The dry fruits used in this appeared to be Dried Grapes and Plums and the spices used that I could detect are of Cinnamon, Star Anise, Cardamom and Nutmeg… However, I must point out that these spices were added in a very mild level that I felt its perfectly enough to elevate the overall taste of the Cake… I also thought I tasted the taste of Hazelnuts as well, but as the baker confirmed, she has not put them in and I guess its just the result of the inaccuracy in my tastebuds from my current condition… I am guessing at this point that its probably also why I felt a subtle hint of Bananas and Figs in it as well (didn’t confirm with the baker though)… Anyways, this cake is a must try for sure… 🙂
So, on the overall, I am indeed glad that I decided to accept the recommendation and try the cake from Cake Craft Trivandrum… Like I said before, the cake that I got is definitely the best cake that I have had in quite a while… But as mentioned above, there is room for some improvement especially in the Fondant, which clearly needs to be perfected… Anyways, I think for quite some time Cake Craft Trivandrum is going to be my regular cake vendor 🙂
