Get Floured

Arshi Dhupia had been sculpting clay for a long time but didn’t make much money out of her hobby. Then she switched medium, from clay to flour...

Arshi Dhupia’s cakes are whimsical sculptures made of flour and sugar

Arshi Dhupia had been sculpting clay for a long time but didn’t make much money out of her hobby. Then she switched medium, from clay to flour, and suddenly there were takers for her art. In her mixing bowl are the usual ingredients — flour, sugar and eggs with yellow eyes ready to be folded. But Dhupia, 32, is not satisfied making the everyday plum cake and walnut cake though she does bake them as well. She adds some ounces of whimsy and fun, and crafts cakes that look like vodka bottles and sneakers, Hanuman and Disney characters and even a bearded Sikh doctor surrounded by capsules and stethoscope. And then there are risqué, sexplicit baked fantasies.

“I’ve always enjoyed working with clay, but then I decided to take my sculpting skills to a different level and began baking cakes with a twist,” says Dhupia, who has had no formal training in baking. And when she’s not donning her apron and getting her hands messy, she studies law at Delhi University.

She has been baking at her Golf Links home for seven years now, but the business picked up recently when she started churning out theme-baked cakes. “They have really caught on,” says Dhupia, who takes a day to deliver the order. She gets at least half-dozen orders a day, though a particularly busy one has seen her bake 250 cakes. In the past month, Dhupia has designed and baked a zoo, a pirate ship and a Volkswagen Beetle. Dhupia laughs when I ask her about the special “adult” cakes. “There are hen parties and women do use their imagination. I get a few orders that are rather daring and it is fun to bake those cakes,” she says, followed by more laughter. Cakes have seldom been this fun.

Prices begin at Rs 350 per kilo. Contact 9811296858