- Monday, July 08, 2024
Creative bakers and social media inspire unique designs
By: Nadeem Badshah
PICTURE a wedding cake emerging from an elegant wardrobe with the song Leke Prabhu Ka Naam blaring in the background and a light show.
As the wedding season gets underway, this is set to be a trend this year for the big day’s sweet treat, according to experts.
A cake being revealed inside a cupboard and ones with up to 15 tiers are set to be popular in 2024 for couples looking to stand out on social media.
Anisha Vasani, a luxury wedding director, told Eastern Eye: “You have cakes opening up. You have two shells, one is a wardrobe or cupboard, and a cake that comes up. It looks flamboyant, beautiful, fantastical.”
The entrepreneur, who runs Anisha Vasani Creates, added: “Tiers are also getting bigger and bigger, up to 10 to 15 tiers. It is influenced by social media, creative bakers, The Great British Bake Off; people are watching how to be creative.
“Every bride and groom I see wants to have something different, that hasn’t been seen before. I have seen a cake hanging in a platform in a chain. Then flowers cascading to the dancefloor. One cake comes down from the ceiling with production; it comes out of the box with the bride and groom on stage, which went viral on social media.”
A bespoke horse and carriage cake costs £3,800, while a hanging cake is priced at £1,395, according to the website Asian Wedding Cakes. A six-tier cake serving 600 portions with silk flowers is listed as £1,595.
Manju Malhi, a chef and food author, believes the growth in people watching streaming services like Netflix during lockdown has influenced new fashions in celebratory cakes.
She told Eastern Eye: “Shows such as Is it Cake?, Bake Squad, and Baking Impossible have led to more and more Asian families moving away from traditional Asian birthday and wedding cakes to caramel lavafilled cakes and dramatic figurine-sculptured creations.
“The Millennials and Gen Z, born predominantly in the UK, are influenced by social media trends and what’s en vogue and are seeking inspiration for newer styles.
“Fruit cakes and tiered-style cakes are being replaced with towers of macaroons and cupcakes, edible pressed flower botanical cakes, metallic rose gold shining bakes, and vintage nostalgic cakes.
“Ingredients are also evolving, with chocolate and cocoa extracts appearing in the mix, and single-origin vanilla extracts being big hits not only from the vanilla hub Madagascar but also Uganda and Indonesia.”
The US TV show, Buddy vs Duff, had a Bollywood-themed episode featuring a five-tier cake, including a figurine of an Indian dancer on top of it.
In the new age cakes, often one tier is edible and the rest is purely for display, and the wardrobe it comes out of is not edible. Malhi added that “mouthfeel” has become important, with egg white protein popular because of its whipping qualities and texture to use aeration, where air is circulated through a liquid or other substances.
“The demand is increasing for unusual tastes and more flamboyance. Fundamentally, the bolder the better,” she added.
The average wedding in the UK in 2023 cost £20,700, which was 12.5 per cent up on the average cost the previous year, according to research by the website Hitch.
Prices continue to increase, with the average expenditure in 2021 being £17,300. Nearly half of the couples who tied the knot last year said that the economy had impacted their wedding budget, an increase of 18 per cent compared to 2022.
Almost a third of couples increased their budget at least once while planning, while a quarter incorporated more DIY than they originally planned.
Nafisa Ali, who got married in 2016 in London, said: “When I got married, the wedding cake was a three-tiered cake decorated with fresh flowers. At the time, I thought my cake was expensive and luxurious, but now that would be classed as a simple wedding cake. “The cakes trending now are much more costly and even thrice the amount I paid. Similar cakes are now heavily decorated with fresh flowers and made of several tiers.
“There are 3D figures of the bride and groom iced into the cake, and I’ve also seen ones hanging from a height, cakes with fountains under them.”
