Sweet O Cake-sions

Running a bakery in Pune means you have a lot of competition, but we stay busy at Sweet O Cake-sions. We started in a home kitchen and eventually moved into our own space because the smell of vanilla was taking over the whole house and driving the neighbors crazy. It’s a lot of early mornings. I’m usually up and starting the ovens before the sun even thinks about coming up. Our floors are almost always covered in a thin layer of flour, no matter how much we sweep. We don't make those perfect, plastic-looking cakes you see in magazines. Ours look like someone actually made them by hand, which is because we do. Sometimes the icing isn't perfectly smooth, or the lettering is a bit crooked, but they taste like they should. We use real butter and sugar, and we don't skimp on the fruit. It’s just a few of us working here. My sister does most of the decorating while I handle the baking and the customers. We get a lot of people coming in for last-minute birthday cakes because they forgot until the day of. We try to keep a few ready, though we run out fast. It’s a messy, sweet business and we like it that way. We don't have any big plans to expand, we just want to keep the ovens hot and the customers happy with their treats. It’s hard work, but the smell makes it worth it.