Icing on the cake

With a sure hand pastry chef Mohammad Nizar places a handful of shiny red cherries on a butter-cream swirl atop of a huge round cake that is covered with white icing and chocolate shavings.

Nizar is putting the finishing touches on his Christmas special black forest cake – a 400-kg cake that’ll be on display at the Bread Factory outlet at Kuravankonam during the festive season.

“It’s easy to bake a cake, but it takes a steady hand to decorate the cake. And the only way to get a steady hand is to practise and practise decorating with various types of icing,” says Nizar, who has been a pastry chef for 17 years.

“A pastry chef should have an artistic flair – ideally, each cake should be a statement piece,” adds Nizar.

Christmas, says the pastry chef, is one of the busiest times of the year.

“Bakeries in the city have four main ‘seasons’ – vacation time (April-May), Onam, Deepavali, and Christmas – when we are flooded with orders. And that’s not only for cakes but we also have to step up production of breads, snacks and savouries too,” says Nizar, who oversees the entire Bread Factory kitchen and its staff of 20. “During these times of the year the kitchen has to run 24/7 to complete the orders and all of us work in shifts,” adds the native of Palakkad, who’s been settled in the city for the past 10 years.