On November 26, the College of Tour and Hotel Management (COTHM) celebrated its first ever International Cake Day. The event, with the support of brands like Nestle, Young’s and Murree Brewery aimed to celebrate the common element of all celebrations: the cake itself.
‘Sharing happiness’ was the well-suited theme of the event. The event consisted of baking and cake decorating competitions with up to 70 participants. It therefore served as an opportunity for aspiring young bakers to showcase their talent and network with others who shared the same interests and reach a certain level of expertise. A majority of the participants in these competition were women, many of whom are running online businesses. Faiza Iqbal, the baking head of COTHM, shared the significance of providing a platform for these women.
The Chocolate Academy CEO Zainab Shafiq shed light on the event’s s importance by saying that it helps to see the cake as more than a single baked good but to draw attention towards the art and the artist behind it.
The participants saw it as an opportunity to polish their skills and learn from and compete with each other. The three categories included Painted Butter Cream, Anti-gravity cake and the Wedding cake.
Iram, a participant whose anti-gravity cake balanced precariously eight inches above the ground with an iron rod shaped like a branch, was especially excited for the outcome of the event. According to her, the International Cake Day was a time for her to grow even more as a chef.
Another participant, Sana, talked about how much she loved baking and despite her wedding cake taking more than 8 hours to complete, was proud of the outcome.
In the first category, Mahnoor Waqar, Rabia Akhtar and Samra Iqbal attained the first, second and third positions. Iram Ramzan, Hadia Tariq and Urooba Akhtar got positions in the same sequence for the second category. The third category had Aimun Saeed, Sana Haroon and Muskan Aqil bagging the first, second and third positions.
All these winners got to receive their prizes from the Nestle officials present over there, including Nestle Executive Officer Nausheen Jaffery, National Sales Manager Shakeel Ahmad, Regional Sales Manager Muhammad Hassan Khan, Channel Manager Muhammad Raza, and Brand Manager (food), Nabil Toor. All these officials along with COTHM CEO, Ahmad Shafiq, met the participants and shared their views on their cake baking skills. Layers CEO Mr. Umar also marked his presence at the event, meeting all the bakers and encouraging them to keep working hard in their area of expertise.
Such events play a key role in a strained political and economic environment. The celebration of the cake reminds us that there are things to be grateful for. It reminds us that various occasions bring us together: Birthdays, anniversaries, weddings are all happy moments we have in common and as long as we’re willing to share these happy moments with each other, we can have our cake and eat it too!
