(Cake making is a far cry from a cakewalk)
“While kids, whenever we got money my siblings and I rushed to a nearby pastry to buy delicacies, among which Donut cake was our favorite. Often, we did not wait till we got back home. We gormandized the cakes en route to our village wondering one another’s appetite for such edible art pieces till our sides’ splat with laughter. We and children in the neighborhood also eagerly waited for birthday feasts which mainly comprised bakery products,” Frehiwot Yehune a cake maker hailing from kazanchis reminisced reverting two decades.
Amused she added, “Little did I know then that I would evolve from a cake fan to a cake baker!”
She responded so when this journalist by chance met her and interviewed her about the broad array of fascinating cakes she paraded for her niece’s birthday showcasing that cake baking is indeed a higher form of art.
“While devouring cakes in our childhood days, as may be the case with cake fans, it didn’t occur to me the sweet toil crafting and baking cakes entails including the long hours one has to stand. Nor did I have an inkling it could be brain-racking in the effort to come up with one’s fingerprint or raise the scale of set standards. Sometimes clients ask you to design the cake as per their interest. Rising to such challenge is very much demanding,” she said.
She noted a cake-lover, unconsciously, she was internalizing the demanding skill of the cake-making art, a subset of the culinary one, presupposes.
“You see, the task of choosing the right ingredients in the right proportion and creating the right mix that best fits most of our sensory organs beg for a passion, long-practice-honed skill, and apprenticeship under born pastry chefs.”
Elaborating on the art borrowing from the first-hand knowledge and training she acquired, Frehiwot has this to say, “A cake has to be eye candy opening the door to our souls, aromatic awakening our olfactory nerves to the extent of whetting our appetite, comfy having a texture that is delicate to out tactile nerves and toothsome to garner the epithet mouthwatering.”
As to her, the art of making cake requires designs that set as a requisite knowledge about shapes and colors and also how to combine the two to come up with edible artistic pieces. Experimenting with the ingredients of a recipe in line with the science to come up with creative pieces is advisable to stick out in red-hot market competitions. “Nowadays, every pastry tries to come up with a special cake exclusively of its allowing room for competition.”
After completing high school, for a while, Frehiwot became idle. But after the support and encouragement of her parents and friends, she took culinary training at Capital Hotel to make a chef out of herself. Soon her interest drifted to cake making.
At the concluding part of six-month training and eight-month apprenticeship in cake making, an interest arose in her to go for the task. Imbibing the science, developing a nimble hand, and focusing on perfectionism she graduated with a certificate as a fully-fledged cake maker.
As the saying goes “skill comes with practice or success comes with a little pain,” she began to entertain confidence to navigate the challenges the profession has in store for her. “I owe a gratitude to my instructors or more precisely my mentors, staffers, and owners of the training center, which renders on the job-training, for helping me to tune to my calling and tolerating me when I erred at the expense of ingredients as well as utensils and thumped me up when my attempts of making a sought-after cake, turned out a hit. Later, when I joined the cake-making job the positive feedback I often basked under fueled my passion to keep going. What is heartening is at different pastries I worked in I did receive appreciations even from those that had a big name.”
“Beholden of my talent, many advise me to open up my pastry. I have a plan to that effect though that seems bleak due to financial constraints. God willing in the future if I get such a chance, I could unleash my potential to the full.”
She is also of the opinion that, as part of the social responsibility, cakes must also be produced for diabetic people bringing into play products composed of say Teff, oats, chickpeas, lentils, grapefruits, sweet potato, and the like recommended by physicians and nutritionists for diabetic visitors of pastries or bakeries. Owners of pastries ought to be sensitized about such issues. “Catering to the demand of clients receiving feedback is sagacious.”
“In meeting places, where we parade delicacies, I have observed diabetic people asking for such a cake in vain. If this problem is accorded due attention, it is not hard to tackle.”
“It sure is good TV channels conduct competition among emerging cake makers by way of promoting this creative art now getting off the ground following some foreigners—Syrians and Yeminis— joining the profession.”
Also, if as part of the import substitution task, local manufacturing industries or small-scale enterprises come up with the necessary gadgets, such as whiskers of different sizes, they could be of immense assistance to young and emerging pastry chefs trying to find a niche. But the gadgets must be calibrated mindful of precision. Controlling the temperature the cake requires in the caking-making process is a salient task. What is more, if ingredients are produced locally in the right quality cake baking could be a lucrative business here.”
Dilating on the issue, Frehiwot pointed out that as people placate their hunger fast shortly when they take a cake with either milk or tea cakes are replacing heavy lunches. As such there is a huge perspective for cakes. As cakes are relatively affordable in the face of inflation the demand for them is increasing.
Relating to how the cake-making industry could absorb many trainable youngsters intent on job creation she noted “If credit and saving associations support aspiring youngsters, who in a group or individually, want to stand on their feet taking the cake baking training, the gesture could go a long way in curbing unemployment.”
Maintaining the right weight and temperature of ingredients in a recipe is the focal task in cake baking. Ensuring that is the right task. Baking cake is a far cry from baking bread. In making a cake one has to be imperfectly perfect. A slight folly could cost you a lot.
While baking cakes hygiene must take center stage. Preserving pastry products also obligates care, especially for children. “If we forget electric blackouts could affect soft cakes the outcome could be disastrous.”
BY ALEM HAILU G/KRISTOS
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 22 MAY 2024
