“Christmas and the New Year season is the best time to introduce fondant and edible figure toppings on cake, which is an art very popular abroad and in metros, but has not taken off here yet,” says Subhashree Palaniswamy, the owner Kovai KRS Bakery, located in RS Puram.

Subhashree went to learn this style of cake decoration over two training sessions at the Culinary and Cake Decorating School in Gurgaon and at Cake Canvas in Bengaluru.

Her cakes now have figures, ranging from 1 ft to 1.5 ft, of Santa Claus, Barbie and cartoon characters. These heights vary according the weight of the cake, which can be from 1kg to 25 kg, and can be made in any one of 50 flavours.

The cost of the cakes with customised figures sculpture can be anything from Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000, but that has not stopped the orders from pouring in.

“As Christmas is around the corner, the banana walnut cake, milk puddings, milk cake, brownies, dry fruit cake and rum-soaked plum cakes are also in big demand,” she says.

With the demand for cakes being 10 times more during the year-end festive season, Subhashree has trained four students of the Oxford Catering College, Madurai, and roped them in to help.

“These students were given training three months earlier and now they get chance to show their skills and I am happy for the extra hands during this busy season,” she says.