Have Your Cake and Health Too

Without cakes the fascinating story of modern bakery industry cannot begin and nor can it end.

- Swarnendu Biswas

Cake has a rich history and seems to have a promising future ahead in this fast-paced age where people are having less and less time to cook elaborate meals. The popularity of cakes spans a huge time period and geography. Even ancient Greeks used to have cheesecakes made of goat’s milk, and the Indian consumers of the twenty-first century and beyond are expected to have a long love affair with the cakes. In fact, both cakes and pastries are expected to gain popularity in India.

It is a commonly known fact that cakes are an integral part of weddings and birthday celebrations in the western world, and are also used in birthdays and other celebrations across a plethora of Indian households. In fact, over the centuries, cake has become the dessert of choice at ceremonial occasions. Cakes can also be great tea time snacks and can be effective in catering to in between hunger pangs between two major meals.

There are a huge variety of cakes. There are cakes with yeast infusions, cheese cakes, sponge cakes, butter cakes, fruit cakes...and now there are designer cakes.

Nowadays, customised cakes with innovative themes and decorations and novel ingredients are getting popular among the upper echelons of urban India, especially in metropolitan India.

The Right Combinations

Besides the designer cakes where the imagination of the cake makers and the customers are creatively reflected in the form of customised and often innovative edible concepts, another important trend that is caking in urban India is the growing popularity of healthy cakes. It is not surprising considering the rampant presence of lifestyle diseases in urban India and also to counteract it, the growing health consciousness across the present day urban Indian society.