Aqsa Lakdawalla who runs Cakes of Skates has been serving up slices of yum through her cloud kitchen in St Inez. And she’s got a special Christmas menu up, NT BUZZ finds out more
CHRISTINE MACHADO | NT BUZZ
When Aqsa Lakdawalla was 11 years old, she baked her first cake for her mother’s birthday. “The cake wasn’t great but my mum ate most of it with a huge smile on her face,” she remembers. And that, she says, is how her baking journey began.
Lakdawalla began watching a lot of cooking shows and trying out different recipes, which she then distributed among her neighbours. When she turned 16, her friend suggested she start home baking as part of a part time business. And thus, she and her sister went from door-to-door in their housing society with a cake menu and sample cake bites for everyone to taste.
“I still remember the first order I got was for six red velvet cupcakes and I cannot express how happy I was,” she says.
Cakes on Skates officially began operations in 2011. “The whole idea behind this name is speed. I used to take same day urgent orders and bake cakes fresh for my clients from scratch. The order used to be ready within two-three hours and even today we are continuing to do so,” she says.
While Lakdawalla had recently moved to Bengaluru to work in a French patisserie, the pandemic forced her to return to Goa. “It was very difficult in the beginning. I returned to Goa just two days before the Janta curfew. I thought this would be a one-week thing and I’ll go back soon but that never happened,” she says.
Once the lockdown was lifted, she started getting a lot of orders as people felt it was safer to take cakes from home bakers and most of the places were shut too. In August, she launched her cloud kitchen in St Inez.
“I have a supportive team of four dynamic women, consisting of an operations manager, an assistant pastry chef, a pastry intern and an all-time helper. Hospitality industry is male-dominated and it was a huge coincidence to find a team with highly talented and hardworking women,” she says. “We have weekly orders put up on the board and daily inventory is done in order to keep a check on raw materials and other products. Everything is done in a systematic manner. We also have slots for last minute orders.”
Orders are accepted through the Instagram page @cakes_onskates or through WhatsApp. “All you have to do is let us know your requirements, select a flavour, kilograms, customisation (if any) and that’s it. We have a menu with a wide range of flavours, but we also customise flavours as per the customer’s needs,” she says. A month ago, they also got onboard Swiggy.
“I have tried to keep an exclusive menu serving the items and flavours that most of the restaurants aren’t serving in my area, ranging from blueberry cream cheese éclairs, lotus biscoff cupcake (our best seller), red velvet macaroons, Nutella cheesecake, and so on,” says Lakdawalla.
And she also has a special menu up for the Christmas season which includes snowman macaroons, pumpkin spice Santa cake, Xmas brownie, stollen, gingerbread cookies, Christmas theme cakesicles and of course the traditional boozy plum cake. “We are taking orders for hampers ranging between `999 and `1499 till December 23,” she says
But Lakdawalla does not restrict herself to just making sweet treats. She has also been teaching the art of baking whenever she can. “I took my first class three years back. I was actually convinced by a friend to take baking classes for her child. I was really unsure about it but she had faith in me and somehow managed to get me do it. My first batch was of six naughty and talented kids between the age group 10 and 13 years. They are still in touch with me and so close to my heart,” she says. “Eventually I started taking classes for adults as well.”
But given that practical classes were not possible during the initial months of the pandemic, she started online classes which fetched a good response with people even joining in from Dubai, Norway, Houston and different parts of India as well. As things have now settled down a bit, practical classes have recommenced with a difference. “Now we take either one-on-one sessions or maximum three-four people in a batch with social distancing and masks on all the time,” she says. Besides this she also posts videos of easy recipes on her Instagram page. “I had a lot of these baking fanatics messaging me on Instagram for easy recipes to make during the quarantine period. And it was so much fun sharing these recipes, receiving messages from people all over the world, watching them try it out and giving my page a shout out,” she says, adding that she tries to post at least one IGTV baking video a week.
However, given how hectic her schedule gets, Lakdawalla admits that at times, she does not find time for herself. “I am at work before everyone else and I leave after everyone has left. Before I started the cloud kitchen I used to travel a lot, meet friends and move out without thinking twice. But now my first and only priority is my business. It’s quite stressful as I have to meet the set targets each month, come up with different creative ideas and reach out to maximum customers,” she says. But she reiterates, she loves what she does. And so recently, she has decided to keep her kitchen shut every Monday so that she has a little more time for herself.
The learning however, she says, will continue. “There is so much to learn in this field. I keep experimenting with a lot of new recipes and ingredients. We have trial sessions of new flavours which are given to regular clients for feedback. Every month we have a brainstorming session on the new items that we can provide to the clients in all our branches,” she says, adding that she is well aware of the competition out there. “There are so many self-taught, qualified, successful, upcoming bakers out there. It is crazy how this field has expanded in the last few months.”
But Lakdawalla has her eyes on her dream goal. “I would like to have my own pastry school. I love baking and I really enjoy teaching. Maybe a few years down the line I will start off with a small institute, fingers crossed.”
