The sweet surrender

He works with the Institute of Baking and Cake Arts (IBCA) as a cake artist. His expertise lies in fondant cakes and creates beautiful (almost like an art work) gigantic cakes.

Samie J Ramchandran, has been designing cakes for the last 3 years — ever since he joined the institution as a student. He was among those who was attracted to the beauty of various structures that can be created with sugar dough or fondant.

“I bake cakes very rarely but I am mostly into confectionery. I was totally amazed by seeing the use of sugar and all the amazing things it can create. I used to watch these baking shows and always wondered how experts created beautiful designs with the mere use of sugar,” says Samie. He started by creating small models which were between 2ft to 3ft, which eventually led to sculpting bigger ones, which went up to 7ft. One of his most popular designs was that of a white tiger, and the biggest cake that he created till now is a 8ft X 12ft.

He says these cakes are absolutely edible. “For a pretty long time, the main ingredient was only sugar, and the concept was to create a complete sugar art, which were hollow from inside. However, I wanted to do something different. That’s when I started trying out different recipes. I used puffed rice and marshmallows and mixed them together, which turned out to be something delicious. I use them to make faces and other difficult places whereas, I use regular cake for the body. Later, I cover them with a fondant coating. Most of the time, I use royal icing for my outer coating,” explains Samie.

Samie says he never really was into baking and neither did he ever think of joining a baking course. Before joining the institute, he was a BCA student, after which he worked in a corporate organisation for sometime. He says, “I always wanted to open my own cafe and I remember it was because of my brother’s push that I joined IBCA. He wanted me to pursue a course that would be helpful in the future but initially, I disagreed. Ultimately, I had to agree, and honestly, I was so fascinated and feel very passionate about it now. Baking is an art for me, and I have learnt so much in such a little time.”

There are various flavours that he has worked on and experimented with, some of which are ferrero rocher chocolate cake, oreo, double chocolate, caramel chocolate, raspberry, mango-litchi and almond-mango to name a few.

His inspiration being Ron Ben-Israel, he says, “I really look up to his works, it is absolutely clean and always different. Cake designing is all about being a visual treat and how neat is one’s work. I always try my best to inculcate something of his into my cakes in my own way.”