Whipping up some joy: Fairytale perfect cakes

For Mumbai-based home baker Anisha Berlia, the lockdown came as an opportunity to revive her first love, baking. “Throughout the lockdown, I was experimenting with various recipes. Last year I hardly got to bake,” says Berlia. The baker’s family helped her source ingredients and equipment to bring her recipes to life. “Almost five times a week, I would send my cakes to friends and family to taste. When I got an encouraging response, I started taking orders in July,” she shares.

Now she has a home kitchen in the ground floor of her house, where she bakes delicious, gorgeous looking cakes under the brand name, The Sweet Life by Anisha . If you scroll through her social media, you will find beautifully decorated cakes that require many hours of handwork. And Entremet, the technique she uses, actually means sweet course served after the cheese course. It involves creating multi-layered mousse-based cakes with various complementary flavours and varying textural contrasts. “I was always interested in art as a subject. Baking cakes has given me an exciting opportunity to play around with colour combinations, textures and flavours,” she says. Talking about Entremet, she says since each cake has four or five layers, it takes about a day to make all layers. All textures are enveloped by mousse and frozen overnight. Next morning spraying, glazing and decoration is done.

Berlia started baking at the age of 16. She went to the Culinary Institute of America in New York and the French Pastry School in Chicago, US, to pursue her passion. Her recipe for a perfect cake is simple: no sugar-based decoration, high quality, fresh and flavourful ingredients and a big dose of aesthetics to please the eyes.