Anna Samuel’s hyper reality cakes come in the form of biryanis and kappa-meen curry

Anna Samuel creates hyper reality cakes, crafting edible art like kappa-meen curry and biryani

Anna Samuel gifted her a father-in-law a potted succulent on his birthday. He kept it on a shelf with his collection of cacti.

“When it was time to cut the birthday cake, I brought it to the table. That is when he realised it was a cake!” says Anna.

The architect-turned-baker’s Anna Bakes had made a name for customised edible art. She began crafting hyper reality cakes during the lockdown when it became the rage all over social media. People went on overdrive, cutting it into dresses, tables, flowers, make-up articles and so on to reveal cakes in different flavours.

Welcome to the age of hyper reality cakes when anything really can be given a cake and cream makeover. In Thiruvananthapuram, Anna began baking these artisanal cakes during the lockdown when people were busy discovering different ways to keep themselves occupied. It was around that time when Anna received a request for a kappa-meen cake (tapioca and fish curry cake).

“It was a challenge and I enjoyed baking the cake and giving it the finish of kappa and meen curry. I found it more interesting than making cakes that resemble cartoon characters,” says Anna.

With the use of fondant, edible gum and food colouring, Anna tried to make it as real as possible and the customer loved this creamy and sweet kappa-meen curry concoction.

Orders came in from friends for cakes that resembled puttu-kadala and banana, Kerala porotta and meat roast and so on.