A baker basking under the glory of a tipper lorry cake!

A baker basking under the glory of a tipper lorry cake!
Rani with her cake | Photo: Vignesh Krishnamoorthy

Baked to perfection for a special occasion! That’s precisely what the “utterly butterly” delicious red velvet tipper lorry cake truly is! Right now, the virally famous cake has got all eyes riveted on its maker, home-baker Rani Santhosh, a native of Mavelikkara.

The very word tipper lorry makes one see red. Infamous for its speed and killer dashes along highways and bylanes, the small yet powerful vehicle is nobody’s favourite. But it certainly is, or was, for a family from Parumala who owned one such vehicle and had to part with it in recent times.

Now comes the story of the sentimentally intertwined cake and lorry. The story has to begin with the cake and the baker Rani Santhosh. Rani and family were in the Gulf when Covid struck. The family which had been running various business ventures fell on hard days following the pandemic, which forced them to wind up everything and head back home to Mavelikkara. That’s when the resourceful Rani decided to try her hand at baking cakes from her home town.

Quite an ace at culinary arts, Rani used to bake cakes for friends and family back there in the Gulf. So she decided to fall back on her skills in a bid to keep the family income going. Once the cakes began making headlines on social media, the family decided to take the baking business head on. And Rani the baker turned out to be quite a hit with her cakes in offbeat designs. Cakes in cartoon characters and even one modelled after a JCB began popping up from her oven.

However, she was totally unprepared for a quaint request from Parumala native Deepa who ordered a cake in the shape and style of a tipper lorry! The buyer sent her the picture of a tipper lorry and asked for a cake just like that. Though Rani had catered to customers who would come up with out of the ordinary designs, this was a one of its kind request.

The tipper lorry request tickled her curiosity. Why this design? On inquiry, she learnt how a family in Parumala shared an umbilical attachment to a tipper lorry they once owned. The vehicle had serviced the family for more than 20 years. But when age and constant wear and tear began telling on its utility, the family had no option but t sell it off, a decision which took a sentimental toll of all its members.

It so happened that the buyers who walked in to drive away with the tipper lorry failed to get it started. Finally, the owner himself had to come to turn it on. So deep was the family’s attachment to the tipper lorry that it was decided to have a cake modelled after it to celebrate the birthday of Rajeevan, the head of the family.

That’s how Rani got to bake a tipper lorry red velvet cake weighing three kilos and a half. This design has now gone viral.

Right now, though cakes are in much demand, they are mostly egg-less ones as devotees are observing the Ramayana-month rituals and prayers, says Rani.

Rani is ably backed in her venture by husband Santhosh Kumaran Nair and kids Niranjan and Nidhi.  

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