CAKEWALK DOWN THE AISLE
Your wedding showstopper is certainly sweet at heart. Cakes My Passion by Ruby Rajagopal vows to make your wedding sumptuous.
Text : Atheena Wilson
Styling : Atheena Wilson & Blessy Jinson
Photos : Jinson Abraham
The potion for a perfect life would be sugar, spice and everything nice. Way before the Powerpuff girls, Medieval England had their secret ingredients sorted. Would you ever believe that a sumptuous cake is a lucky charm for your wedding? In Medieval England, when a bride and groom were able to kiss over a tall stacked cake made up of spiced buns, they were blessed with their happily ever after.
While in Ancient Rome, wedding ceremonies were finalized by breaking a cake over a bride’s head for good fortune. Since antiquity, cakes augured a good dollop of good luck and it’s pretty much got its charm till now. After that’s why we need cakes, to add some sugar in everyone’s lives. While growing up, I thought wedding cakes were props and sliced formally for a function. It was either the mountainous ones that looked like Mayan temples or those cloudy white cakes with a few flowers. The ones that sat solitary on the stage. But now, after multiple ‘cake board meetings’ the cakes decided to get away from their typical sugar-coated image – ‘ a piece of cake’. They’re quite the showstoppers these days.
A Piece of Cake
Earlier a professor at Calicut University, Ruby started Cakes My Passion simply as a hobby after she moved to Kochi. She started to bake cakes that were irresistible in her friend’s circle, which lead to her new business. On October 2nd, Cakes My Passion celebrated its first anniversary, coincidental and perfect we got to celebrate it with a shoot. Though there wasn’t a wedding, it felt like one.
Everyone got together to get the desserts sorted. Ruby was making the final swirls on the golden cake while Nidha her daughter was molding the carrot halva and slicing slithers of almonds. Their son, Kicha was helping cut out some gold paper, while her husband Rajagopal was placing the silver beads on the macaroons.
Slices of Style
When it comes to weddings, desserts always make the statement -stunning with their colors, forms and texture and different tastes. While we were styling the shoot, Ruby and I felt like wedding planners coordinating signage cards, napkins and flipping through themes on the hunt for the perfect cakes. Ruby asked, “How about a rustic nude chocolate cake for a garden wedding, and pastel cupcakes for an English themed wedding?” Would you ever imagine being a cake designer is like a couturier? Looking over swatches of colors, we were exchanging colors in our lingos, “ How about Tiffany blue for the macaroons and Aladdin purple for the chocolate pops?” Our mood board was set across her dining table, from silver beads to navy blue brocade napkins and floral bird cages. It was a kaleidoscope of colors from the pastel shades of cupcakes to the flamboyant strawberry pan cottas, decadent gold foil cake and the humble nude cake.
Enjoying the moist red velvet cakes to the crunch of the macarons with vanilla cream, I realized your cake and desserts are an expression of how you love things sweet. Lapped in the luxury of Ruby’s desserts, I just knew why weddings needed desserts. It gives you the best kind of rush- the sugar rush.
