Love cake is in the air
Taking Sri Lanka to the world through Love cake. Pix by Priyantha Wickramaarachchi
Valentine’s Day has always been associated with chocolates and roses. But what if there was another way to profess your love, a love at first bite kind of moment. After all, few can say ‘no’ to cake, especially love cake.
This week, in a collaborative effort, multiple hotel, retail, restaurant and bakery operators around the country are launching a celebration of love cake on the initiative of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA). The aim is to make love cake more popular than it is now and what better way to do it than link it to Valentine’s Day.
SLTDA Chairman Kavan Ratnayake believes gastronomy is an important part of tourism which is why they are setting out to show the world that Sri Lanka has amazing food to offer, which is also different to what they’ve tasted before.
SLTDA Chairman Kavan Ratnayake
“We’re taking Sri Lanka to the world, through love and love cake,” the Chairman said, inviting restaurateurs, hoteliers and bakers etc. to take over love cake and innovate with it. “You can do so much with love cake and there are different family recipes etc. So we would like to bring out all of those,” he said.
Depending on the interest this year a large-scale love cake festival is also on the cards from 2019 onwards.
Love cake has always been a delicacy, to many Sri Lankans. Its orgins are said to be traceable to the Portuguese who dominated the coastal regions of the island, during the 16th and 17 centuries. As the story goes, the Portuguese, brought with them, a cake called ‘Bolo di Amor’ (coarse cakes of love). The rest is history. The locals got hooked. Some created their own versions fusing both Sri Lankan and European flavours, which developed into the cake we cherish today.
The traditional recipe of love cake has a combination of cadjunuts, nutmeg, cardamom, lemon rind, cloves, pumpkin preserve and semolina. Some cooks also prefer to add a dash of Brandy or Rum.
Kaema Sutra’s Dharshan Munidasa
Renowned restaurateur Dharshan Munidasa told the Sunday Times that as part of the collaboration, the Ministry of Crab will be looking to work with the home industry, “with the housewives who run small businesses.” Furthermore ‘Kaema Sutra’, together with their new pastry chef, hopes to create a Kaema Sutra version of the cake.
“Each cake can be different, it can be owned by somebody but it is still love cake and we want to present to the world something unique, which is what we’ve done with crab. This is a simple concept which can be packaged and people can even take it away with them,” Dharshan said.
Meanwhile the Shangri-La Hotel is looking to add their own creative spin to love cake, whilst sticking to locally sourced ingredients. According to Renusha Gomis, the Director Partnerships and Special Events, of Shangri La, the hotel will have three to four different variations of the cake. This they hope to package, with the inclusion of the logo that the SLTDA has developed for the occasion.
Renusha adds that the cake will be available at the hotel’s tea outlets and at their high tea. “If it is something that carries and gains momentum, we would also love to include it in our day to day offerings,” she says.
Just like Shangri La, Kaema Sutra and Ministry of Crab, several other hotels, restaurants and home bakers will also be doing their own innovative take on the cake. It certainly promises to be a sweet deal. And if you do grab a slice of the cake, take a picture and include the hash tag #LoveCakeLove.