Celebrate Diwali with cakes

If you are looking for something other than traditional sweets like gulab jamuns, barfis and ladoos this year on Diwali, then the in-thing is to bite into special Diwali cakes and cup cakes.

With only a few days left for Diwali, bakers have introduced special cakes with icings of diyas and rangoli designs as well as small cup cakes with festive designs and topping of colourful sugar sprinkles.
 
“We have cupcakes in all kinds of festive icing. We have also introduced photo cupcakes with images of diyas, Happy Diwali, the shubh laabh symbol and so on. These are turning out to be this season's favourites.

The photos representing the festival designs are made with dried sweet syrup ,” says Sumit Verma of Bagels and Brownies bakery in GK. “Though traditional sweets are still a huge hit but baked items are selling like hot cakes too, both for celebrating the festival and also as a gift.”

The idea is to try out and gift a variety of sweets to the customers. So, the bakery has introduced photo chocolates in shapes like squares, rectangles and hearts. A box (with four to eighteen pieces) can cost anywhere between Rs 275 to 700.

Cakes and cup cakes are not available only in the usual chocolate flavour, they are also being made in vanilla, banana and some newly introduced flavours like “cranberry, blueberry, tiramisu, strawberry and lemon.

Generally, people go for vanilla with chocolate icing or with strawberry icing along with colourful sparkles in different shapes. Meanwhile for Diwali cakes we have flavours of chocolate truffle, after brownie and fudge,” informs Sumit.

Meanwhile, it is not just the bakeries which are noticing a good demand. Even those who bake cakes at home are receiving orders. “We have had orders for Diwali cup cakes and cakes.

Assorted varieties of cup cakes with a mix of all Diwali designs are preferred by people these days,” says Mekhla Sinha, who supplies home-baked cakes. Recently, Mekhla’s cake stall at a Diwali mela got a good response.

“Freshly baked cakes make for an excellent gift. Since Diwali is the season of dry fruits, cakes like walnut coffee cake and sweet almond cake are most liked by people. Carrot cakes, banana cakes and pineapple cakes are always a delight too. They are many who prefer eggless cakes without icing for Diwali,” shares Mekhla.

For the diet-conscious, bakeries have introduced sugar free cakes and cup cakes.  “We offer sugar free cup-cakes, brownies and raisin cakes for those having a sweet tooth but are on their weight loss programme,” shares Sumit.

To celebrate this Diwali with bakery items, all you need is to spend Rs 60-100 for a single piece of cup cake and Rs 500-800 for a complete Diwali cake. Cake without an icing can cost around Rs 200-400. So go ahead and indulge yourself a little differently this time.