No fancy cake or cupcake can really beat the pleasure of biting into a desi sweet like gulab jamun or rasmalai, methinks. But for those who want the best of both worlds, Ishika Sabharwal has just the right solution. Yup, you guessed it! This 28-year-old bakes gulab jamun cakes which are to kill and die for. "I just wanted to do something different from the conventional red velvet, chocolate truffle and all that," says Ishika, who started baking under her own brand Love at First Bite which she started recently. Forever fascinated with designs, Ishika pursued a two-month course in Cake Engineering from Whitecaps International School of Pastry in Bengaluru and came back with skills she put to good use.
So, how did she arrive at the conclusion of making gulab jamun cakes? "For any festival, Indian sweets are a must and then, a separate cake is ordered for the kids, which is usually their preference when it comes to desserts. So I thought, why not work on a combination of both," shares Ishika. She zeroed in on the milky rasmalai and the all-time favourite gulab jamun because their spongy texture is similar to that of a cake and their cake decorations, in her mind, seemed doable. In May 2019, she made her first rasmalai cake, followed by a gulab jamun cake and now, "A customer just requested for a kalakand cake and I really want to experiment with more and more Indian sweets," she says, sounding excited.
Ishika's love for baking started with cupcakes and look how far it has come. Cupcakes, brownies, cake jars, cake pops, cakesicles, cookies, macaroons — she can whip up all of this and more. And yet, this is just the beginning. "I will be opening an outlet in a year, for sure. I also want to get into production and supply my cakes to bakeries. So, my focus is also on a production unit, not just retail," says Ishika, who painstakingly works on her cake creations into the wee hours of the night.
Some of her creations
On the menu
After acing the rasmalai cake, this is what Ishika wants to bring to Hyderabad
- Chandelier cakes: "These are already big in Mumbai and New Delhi and I want to get them here as well," says Ishika about this layered cake which is suspended from the top with the help of a stand
- Hanging cake: Or suspended cakes is when the cake, in its totality, is hanging from a frame
For more about her cakes, check out instagram.com/love_at_first_bite143
