An unusual celebration was organised to mark the 67th birthday of Rajinikanth at Chennai Citi Centre on Tuesday. Buttons Cupcakes, launched two months ago, created a Rajinikanth mosaic with 6,700 bite-sized cupcakes.
“We wanted to honour Superstar in a unique and special manner, and as it was his 67th, we decided to create a cupcake mosaic,” says AP Karthik, managing partner, Buttons. The plan for the mosaic was created by his consultant chef Anil Kumar and Dubai-based designer Reqwan Ameer. It was designed using 67 blocks then put together by a team of 10 members from Buttons, in a little over three hours.
“We had four different colours — a vanilla base in colour for the background, vanilla base with cream for his face, chocolate for his hair and beard, and red velvet with red buttercream frosting for the letters. Four chefs and two assistants baked the cupcakes, and it took a total of 72 hours to complete the entire process,” says Karthik.
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The biggest challenge that the team faced was uniformity. “Maintaining the consistency in all four layers of the cupcakes was not easy. We had to pay attention to the base, filling, icing as well as the topping,” he says.
When Karthik, whose family is involved in the jewellery business in Calicut, ventured into the F&B industry he did extensive research to identify gaps in the market. He finally decided to set up Buttons, offering bite-sized cupcakes, weighing 10 grams each, in sets of three, six, 12 or 25.
“We have 19 flavours and also customise according to customer requirements. About 80% of the raw material we use is imported, and soon we will be opening our second branch at Anna Nagar and another at Forum Vijaya Mall later,” he says.
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Along with his team, Karthik had planned this event five weeks ago, and the mosaic was assembled on Tuesday, even as onlookers cheered them on, with hit Rajini songs playing in the background.
“A cupcake mosaic of this size (9.6 feet by 10.8 feet) has not been done before. We have applied to the India Book of Records to consider our attempt,” he informs.
The mosaic, which was on display till 8 pm on Tuesday, was later dismantled, with half of it being distributed to fans and guests assembled at the venue, and the rest being sent to two orphanages in the city, Udhavum Karangal and Kaakkum Karangal.