From Tandoors to Tiered Triumphs: Anu Sinha’s Journey to Cake Artistry

Curiosity Sparks Cake Making

Anu Sinha was only 11-years-old and in Class Five, when she baked her first cake. Growing up in the early ‘80s in the Bokaro Steel City, she hadn’t thought much about cakes or ovens, till she was flipping through a Femina or Eve’s Weekly magazine. A particular cake recipe caught her eye because a suggested ingredient was Coca Cola. Anu couldn’t believe that a sliceable cake could contain that fizzy dark drink. Till then, the primitive round oven at home was mainly being used for naans and other kneaded breads. Like Elizabeth Zott in Lessons in Chemistry, Sinha’s curiosity was aroused.

Requesting her mother to procure the ingredients – maida, butter, Coca Cola et al – Sinha followed the instructions to a tee. “The cake turned out wonderfully,” she recalls. With her younger brother and his friends wolfing down her first experiment, she was gratified by the reception. They said it was one of the “best cakes ever Didi” and asked when she would be baking the next one.

Stoked, she returned many times over to the oven with varied batters. Some cakes were fluffy and moist and perfectly balanced, others were dry or soggy or overly sweet. Whether it was a “hit” or a “miss”, Anu had started grasping the nuances: of how to cream butter, or beat in the sugar, or sift the dry ingredients with baking soda.

Sometimes, when the mixture was bubbling in the oven, the electricity went off. Unshaken, she transferred the tin to a pressure cooker or to a kadai with sand or salt, techniques she had watched her mother use. Despite how chancy it all seemed, she started deriving joy from baking. In Class Seven, she made a pizza, a dish that was perceived as exotic and rare in the industrial, steel town. All along, her brother and his friends devoured her “trials”. She recalls the capsicum-topped pizza vanishing in no time, goading her to burrow into those magazine pages for new ideas.

Reigniting Her Childhood Passion

But she didn’t belong to a household or a generation where cooking or baking were deemed viable vocations. Rather, her progressive father did not want his daughter confined to the kitchen. Apart from her baking attempts, she hadn’t gleaned the ABCs of cooking: “Not even daal chawal,” she chuckles. Later, high school pressures entailed hitting the books while forsaking all else. From Class 12 and through her graduate and post-graduate degrees in Delhi, her cake making came to a halt. Marriage, followed by an MBA and a corporate career in Human Resources at Hewlett Packard (HP) shoved baking into a wispy past.

Moving to Singapore with Abhishek, her husband, and Tvesha, her one-year-old daughter, she contended with conflicting emotions. She was working at HP then and Tvesha spent long hours at a creche. Choosing a career break, she spotted something that had always been glinting at her: an inbuilt oven.

Learning to cook a slew of dishes with recipes and always with exact, weighing-scale measures, she turned soon to her first love: baking. “I could never cook like our mothers cooked andhaaz se,” she says. Such precision helped when it came to her first cake in many years: a carrot cake as intriguing as that Coca Cola one. When she offered it to her Chinese neighbor, the response — a cascade of effusive compliments — echoed the admiration she used to garner earlier. By then, the internet was around in a more primitive form. Discovering recipes online, she shared slices with friends.

Baking Breaks and New Beginnings

A friend suggested she upskill herself with professional baking courses. Malaysian bakers were known for their exceptional skills. Signing on to a group class, Sinha started learning aspects that she hadn’t encountered earlier. For instance, the various types of icing – buttercream, Swiss meringue and French. She delved into the alchemy of baking soda and powder, learned the delicate balance of proportions and discovered the right tools to transform her creations. After a mere ten or twelve classes, she sensed her baking transcending to a new level.

The birth of her son brought a lull to her culinary trials. Moving to Bangalore, and with both kids at school, she found time on her hands. Someone recommended Manju’s cooking classes in RT Nagar, where she brushed up on techniques. Upgrading her oven to a smart one, she continued baking for friends. Till someone insisted she take orders and charge for them. Hesitant, at first, to sell or price her cakes, Sinha eventually gave in to the clamor from friends.

Her first paid order was for a friend’s birthday. She still recalls how she meticulously baked the chocolate cake, piped the icing, and packed it in a cake box. Receiving an order and being paid for it felt different from her earlier experiences. This was newly affirming. It was thrilling too when the customer called with gushing praise.

Cakes, Creativity and Customer Cheers

Soon her business started growing in the best way possible: organically, through word of mouth. Requests rolled in. For the first few orders, she was jittery till the cakes were done. She spent many hours perfecting her vanilla and chocolate recipes, testing at least 20 to 25 varieties of each. Higher-quality ingredients made an immense difference. While most commercial bakeries use compound chocolate – substituting butter with vegetable oil – Anu opted to use only the best Couverture chocolate. The cost of her ingredients would be steeper, but she wasn’t willing to compromise on taste, texture and appearance.

Gradually she started forging her own recipes – through iterative trials and errors – tweaking details to produce consistently luscious cakes. Keen on expanding her skills, she attended an advanced workshop on 3D figures and sugar flowers by Joonie Tan, an instructor at Lavonne Academy. While learning to wield fondant – a sugar dough – like clay, she discovered the exacting skill it takes to make anything. Even seemingly simple cake pops: “You need the correct quantity of cake crumble with sticks attached in a particular way.” For a Christmas party at her residential complex, Anu’s cake pops decorated with trees and stars were a sellout. On Halloween, her ghost and pumpkin cake pops had kids swarming to her door.

Each time she learned a new technique, she expanded her repertoire with new classes on sites like Craftsy.com or YouTube Tutorials. She was mesmerized by the work of Nicholas Lodge, a cake artist who made exquisite, lifelike sugar flowers. She started playing with fondant and other forms of icing, creating a range of animals and figures: “Bears, giraffes, dolphins, unicorns, Superman, Batman – you name it, I’ve made it.” From cake artist Rumala Jaseel, she learned floral cutting and subtle shading to bring sugar flowers to life. Signing on to the Home Bakers Guild, Anu attended classes conducted by international and local experts.

Floral Flourishes and Fondant Finesse

At this point, Sinha notes, there is a shift away from sugar flowers to using fresh flowers. But even these need specific techniques before incorporating them on bakes. Pesticides must be washed off, the stems sealed and straws inserted to avert contamination.

For clients who desire sugar flowers, Anu outlines the process. Sugar paste has to be rolled into an almost translucent thinness, followed by precise cuts with a floral cutter or an Exacto  knife. Other steps involve imparting texture, gently curling petals, drying them before artfully corralling the parts and coloring accents.

Once, a client approached Anu with a whimsical ask for a baby shower cake: a three-dimensional stork, a basket dangling from its beak, cradling a blanket-swaddled baby. The project demanded three days of intense labor. Anu dove into a myriad tutorials, plotted each step, her nerves tingling with excitement, intent on a flawless final creation. She even crafted a backup stork, in case the first one met an untimely fate. Piecing it all together, a profound satisfaction washed over her.

Baking Blunders and Brilliance

Like with any creative journey, her bakes have been punctuated by mishaps. Once, she forgot to incorporate mashed bananas into a banana cake or watched a towering barrel cake almost topple over. During such crises, she stays undeterred: starts over and redoes the work. This tenacity extends to all aspects, including ingredient quality. When a batch of runny mascarpone cheese arrives for her tiramisu, she rethinks the cake. She never betrays loyal clients.

Despite the physical strains of cake making, Anu’s commitment to her craft remains unwavering. In the past, she struggled with back pain but now sustains her fitness with strength training, yoga, and walking. She limits her commissions to ensure she can handle the work herself, from measuring ingredients to adding the final touches. Despite receiving beguiling offers from five-star hotels and platforms like Swiggy, she chooses not to scale her business. Baking for her is a therapeutic and meditative activity and she’s disinclined to outsource it to helpers.

She continues to upskill herself, staying abreast on the latest trends. She actively follows cake artists who inspire her and masters new techniques, such as working with wafer and rice papers. Recently, she has received a barrage of requests for sugar-free and vegan cakes, or for alternative ingredients like jaggery, dates, almond flour, and coconut flour. She plans to adapt her recipes to meet the new demand.

Sweet Dreams, Touching Milestones

Sinha dreams of crafting a stunning, tiered wedding cake for her daughter, adorned with intricate sugar flowers — a testament to her journey from the little girl baking in a tandoor-like oven to a skilled artisan creating edible masterpieces.