Seventh edition of India Bake Show has something for bakers both big and small

Bengaluru: The seventh edition of India Bake Show began on Friday in the city, bringing together the baking community of the city. The three-day event has several attractions for visitors such as activities with instructors, displays of cakes, masterclasses by chefs and edible art installations.

The art installations had the theme of Indian festivals and included pieces such as a nativity scene, a bhoota kola piece and a Raavana piece. Creator of the Raavana piece Chef Vijay Gowda said, “I selected Diwali as the festive theme for me.

Basically for Raavana, I wanted to do a character that was aggressive and raw.” The piece depicts a muscular and large Raavana with his many heads and a bloody sword in hand, and weighs around 215 kilograms, according to Gowda.

“It is made up of sugar. The colour what you see is food colouring. I’ve used a lot of gold foil to get that shine on the jewels and ornaments.” He said. The inside of the piece has metal rods to hold its shape and has a rice crispy filling rather than a cake as it needs to stand for three full days.

“It was very challenging for me. I wanted to do a life-sized model. Somewhere I read that he’s eight feet tall and huge with ten faces. So that inspired me a lot to create this and I took ten days to create this.” Gowda said. The show also had several stalls put up by large companies like Kitchen Aid as well as smaller establishments such as The Pista Co., a cloud kitchen selling snacking items such as cookies and croissants.

According to the owner Raeez, they had not expected their stall to be as popular as it was on the first day and said that almost all their items were sold out. “We’re experiencing such a thing for the first time. It’s not really the sales we were expecting, it's more about the marketing.

We’re not really bothered about the sales. Our company is new so marketing is going on and we thought we’ll push and not worry about sales, but everything is gone. Today the cinnamon roll finished fast.” He said. Taking place at the NIMHANS Convention Centre, the show also encourages people to learn new skills in baking and has a series of demonstrations by chefs and demonstrations by experienced professionals.

Anita, a hobbyist, found the day’s activities enjoyable and enlightening. She said, “I got to learn some new things from the demonstrations. I saw one demonstration of a ganache cake and mousse with glaze and a palette knife techniques demo.

I bake as a hobby so I got to learn some new techniques. The stalls which attracted me here were the ones with tools, because they are interesting to me as someone who bakes, of course some need to be used with the right technique.”

Chef Vin Basha, taught the audience about plating and using garnishes and sauces . “ The crowd was very sweet and they are very eager to learn. It was more like chatting.” He said. Basha, originally from Hyderabad, started his career in Bengaluru and expressed appreciation for the opportunity to deliver such a session.

“I have seen so many creations. The cakes they have are sculpted well and there are some students who participated who have done a really good job,” he said.