A Handy Little Wedding Cake Guide

When you book a venue for your wedding in Bombay, it tends to be a parcel of most essential wedding requirements – the decorator, caterer, sound and light, wedding car, etc. As well as for the economically worried, this service by the venue providers is excellent for those who don’t want to spend much time fretting over the nitty-gritty. There are of course options for different budgets – usually ranging from platinum to silver packages.

The caterers who are included in this contract system also provide the bridal couple with the wedding cake, and it is usually complimentary. The cake you end up with is in direct relation to the catering package you select. If you aren’t pleased with what you see, you can always opt to buy (or make) your own wedding cake.

Sample these cakes – most of them taken from the wedding albums of East Indian couples I know.

Concept - Silel, Cake artist - Lindsey (~9820293430~)

Concept - mine (flowers from Crawford Market & topper by Shawn Lewis), Cake artist - Aunty Glenny, Vasai

Concept & artist - Trudy, Bombay (~+912226770649, +919833417776~)

Concept and cake artist - Aunty Glenny, Vasai

Concept & artist - Aunty Glenny, Vasai

Concept - Ashley & Aster, Cake artist - Aunty Glenny, Vasai

Aren’t they beautiful! Do send me pictures of your wedding cakes, I would love to put them up out here.

One of the limitations most cake bakers I know face when crafting a wedding cake in Bombay is the lack of decent food colouring. You get the standard red, blue, green and yellow and any daring colours can only be attempted via the mix-and-match method. Even then, the colour you end up with is a watered down shade of the one you need.

For instance, for my own wedding cake, I had an entirely different style of cake in mind and plum purple was my choice of colour for the layer of icing as it would have totally swinged our theme. I had to reverse the combination though and make do with (artificial) plum purple flowers that I plucked out of a bouquet I purchased at Crawford Market. Regardless, I was told people had a good time sticking them all in the cake while decorating it, so it turned out fun in the end *grin*

For my sister’s wedding we are better prepared and I am going to do my darndest to arm Aunty Glenny with bold food colouring like the ones I saw on Baking Pleasures.

If you would like to go the cupcake way (like the second cake from Project Wedding), there are many cupcake bakers cropping up in good old Bombay these days. A very hunger-inducing glance through some Brown Paper Bag archives led me to these lovely folks:

~ SOS Cupcakes – for whimsy cupcakes

~ Dolce – for Luxe cupcakes

~ Recipe Mobile – for cupcakes and cheesecakes

~ Cake it Away – for creative cupcakes

And then again, there are professional bakers who specialize in wedding cakes like:

~ Joyce Fernandes – +912226423613 / +912226436805 / +919820139370

~ Desireé Cake Studio – +912226454962 / +912226458998

~ Tart Cakes – they are not as dodgy as they sound (not unless you want them to) and they even make cupcakes

~ The Baking Tray

And if you happen to be a groom or bride who wants to go that extra mile for the aisle, try out something as novel as a cake baking class that allows you to take home the fruit of your labour. Reema Prasanna’s Bake You! not only provides you with an expert one-on-one baking session, but you also get to use her kitchen and equipment. For a couple that would like to make their wedding extra memorable (and have some time on their hands), I can’t think of a better way to do so than indulge in an activity like this!

So there you have it, my handy little guide to the best websites, spots and people to hit for a wedding cake in Mumbai and even in Vasai. Let me know if you know of any interesting ones. You could shoot me a mail at haellii at hotmail.co.uk or simply comment on this post.

Purple Feathers, Darling Nuns, Shopaholics & New Beginnings

Last Friday had me sleeping a bit late due to extreme excitement over my first shopping excursion for the wedding.

Something Special in Bandra is a DIY bride’s dream & maybe the groomsmen & the men from my bridal party’s nightmare. I shall reveal nothing more than two words – purple feathers.

Mom and I wrapped up with Something Special and I don’t know what compelled me, but I was pulled towards my school or more specifically the nuns who were so much a part of my childhood. I was unable to meet my old principal but as I was nervously jotting down a note to her, I met the terror of my boarding school days.

Said terror was the resident nurse and the choir mistress. If you were sick, you were huffed at for falling sick. If you were not sick, you were huffed at for causing general inconvenience. If you had a good voice, you had to attend interminable singing practices. If you couldn’t croak well, you were banished to the spare voices section.

Us girls would find ourselves in quite a pickle when in the presence of the terror.

So imagine my surprise when said terror gives me the biggest bear hug in mankind’s history and greets me like I’ve come home. It made me quite sappy to tell the truth.

Easter dresses beckoned me though and so I had to leave the good nuns for the nonce with promises to return soon for more reminiscing. Luck had it that I found the perfect dress in the first shop itself. I am so darn pleased with it, that I am planning on wearing it on the day my Second Banns are read in church.

The next day continued in very much the same vein. After a lot of waiting and coaxing I got to watch Confessions of a Shopaholic with three absolutely, divinely, stylish girls.

From frame one onwards, I was captivated. I forgot all about my cheese popcorn. I forgot about everything except a theatre full of beautiful women who let go of the world for an hour or two, the purple galoshes , coats, dresses, heels and purple everything, three women who loved to shop and always have a better-than-good time and Sophie Kinsella’s magical, funny story.

The adrenaline was gushing and I was incredibly high on a fabulous weekend spent with family, friends and cousins. So I ended the night with a thorough soaking in Temptations at Bandra and spread some Britney Spears ‘love’. On a side note, they really ought to chuck them old CDs out from the jukebox!

 

Aside and apart from everything else, this has been a fitting last week to an old year and an old life.

Sukaala to the new year! Gudi Padva abhinandan.

My Palette of Purple

As many of you know, the colors I’ve chosen for my wedding are:

Rich Cream
Pale Gold
Goth Purple

This unusual combination is very difficult to put together on many counts, mainly because people simply don’t go for anything darker than a freaky shade of wine when it comes to dark purple.

However, I live in hope and hope to find my perfect match (color i.e.) very soon.

The Great Bridal Gown Search

M said “Shock ’em all”.

S said “I like what you select”.

R said “It’s you”.

V said “It’s Reen”.

P said “Less skin”.

G said “Demure”.

R said “Not white”.

B said “Comfortable”.

M said “Anything you wear you make it look good”.

J said “Chuckle chuckle”.

S said “Magical”.

L said “Gasp”.

A line from my Facebook bio which I feel I must add out here (my talisman for the coming days until I settle on the final design):

There are places I would love to see and things I’d like to do… But something I would like more is to be content and be me.