Oman Avenues Mall hosts Cake Talks

MUSCAT: Oman Avenues Mall hosted Cake Talks, a knowledge sharing platform for bakers and culinary artistes. The Cake Talks event held over two days at the mall’s Gold and Platinum Party Hall comprised all the latest ideas, live competitions, and demonstrations from the world of sugarcraft, cake decoration and baking.

The theme of the competitions held during the event encompassed topics such as the queen of the show, the best bakery of the year, professional level baker, amateur level baker, and unique flavoured cake and decorated cupcakes. Alife size cake created by Reema Siraj Studio, Dubai, was displayed at the event. The Battle of the Bakers competitions witnessed participation from cake enthusiasts from across the Middle East. Amal Salim Al Siaby made a live demonstration on pistachio fudge and Chef Asanaka Dharmaratna made a presentation on cake decoration. Hadeel Mohammed Redha Hassen owner of Masterchef gave a speech on women’s empowerment. The competition was open to all cake enthusiasts in the Middle East including beginners, professionals, hobbyists and bakeries.

Cake Talks 2019 was inaugurated by renowned professional sugarcrafter Alan Dunn who is also a well-known baker, confectioner and author. One of the world’s leading authors, Alan has written several books on sugarcrafting. Apart from being an accredited demonstrator for The British Sugarcraft Guild, he also teaches and demonstrates across Europe, as well as USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Japan and South Africa.

The idea of Cake Talks was conceptualised in 2013 by four Muscat-based hobby-bakers as a knowledge sharing platform meant for baking enthusiasts. Since then, Cake Talks has grown significantly and attracted attention from all over the world and the Middle East. In 2018, over 30 workshops were conducted under the auspices of Cake Talks attended by more than 200 students.

A spokesperson for Cake Talks said, “We thank Oman Avenues Mall for their support and encouragement. We owe this year’s success to them. Continuing the momentum gained in 2018, we hoped to expand into new horizons by inviting international cake artists and chefs from outside the Muscat region. We are pleased that we were able to achieve our goals.”