Its time to tease your taste buds again

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Who doesn’t love to daub their fingers in the fluffy whipped cream laced above the Christmas cake. The moment festive fever grips the city, cakes turn out to be the much sought after constituent for Christmas merry making. With barely a week left for the day that remembers the birth of Jesus Christ, baking houses in the city have started preparing delicious cakes to serve customers waiting for their pick.  Well before the start of the festival, the cake mixing process begins. Vinoj John, executive chef of Hotel Residency Tower in the city says,  “The cake mixing process gets finished some 45 days before Christmas. The quality of the cake increases when the batter is kept for a longer period”. The cake mixing involves crunching and mixing dry fruits, apricots, raisins, cherry, cashew nuts etc and soaking them in liquor for nearly a month.Many varieties of plum cake and sponge cake are sold during this season.  M Dhananjayan Nair, manager of Ambrosia says, “Though cakes are available in several varieties, the ‘black forest’ is the much preferred one for many. Churches give bulk orders for plum cake and corporates demand plain cake”. According to Nair, Ambrosia sells two special varieties of black forest cakes, ‘cookie black forest’ and ‘premium black forest’. The common black forest costs Rs 450 per kilogram. This time two new varieties are tried in the market, ‘Gold Medal’ made of vanilla paste and ‘Real Truffle’ with choco base.Whereas in Residency Tower, the most moving items are in the spongy category. ‘Fair Lady’, on the white chocolate base is the much sought after variety. Apart from this, ‘Mocha Gateau’, ‘Caramel Gateau’, ‘Black Forest’ and ‘White Forest’ too sell like ‘hot cakes’. The cakes most often are given as complementary gifts than individual customers buying it in the market.Yet, the market this time is under a threat following the economic slowdown, increase in the cost of cocoa powder and the less availability of egg from Tamil Nadu. “Several corporate companies have reduced the number of cakes ordered citing restrictions in budget allocation. Maybe due to this, they prefer  plain cakes to costly varieties this time,” says Nair.  The market is expected to be in full swing from Monday onwards.