Spooky tales galore

Halloween celebrates the day of the dead, and is marked with scary tales and spooky fests. While there are a zillion kitchen nightmares that one encounters on a day-to-day basis, we asked three home bakers to share their horror tales with clients on this eventful night. 

‘When a client took us for a ride’

Tania Behl

I once had a client, who was very demanding even at the time of deciding on the design. They didn’t agree to any of my suggestions, haggled on the price, told me it was for a dinner party, turned out to be a wedding cake. Which I only found out when they were scheduled to pick up the cake, and they ended up telling me I had to deliver it as it was not possible for anyone to come pick it up. When time came for me to follow up on payments, they went on to tell me that the cake was horrible, the decoration had melted, it looked much smaller than the reference picture. After several calls and messages I was reduced to begging for the payment, which finally I gave up and wrote it off as a business learning expense.

‘When a bad day ended on a sweet note’

Rachna Makhija

A few weeks ago, we received a call at 4.30 pm for a birthday cake. After refusing many times, because it was on too short a notice, we finally decided to accept the order. The client reached the destination for delivery 30 minutes prior to the decided time. Lucky for us the cake was ready before time and was on its way for delivery, but because of bad weather, our delivery vehicle found it difficult to reach the spot. Somehow the driver managed to get the car just a lane away from the delivery address, but suddenly the car broke down. We still managed to send someone on foot to collect the delivery from the car but he gave up midway and came back as he could not make it to the spot. Rather than let our hardwork go to waste, we cut it up into quarter kg pieces and started to distribute it among the people who were stranded in the rain without a ride. Nothing pays better than love and blessings. 

‘When we learnt an important lesson’

Divya Ranglani and Hitesh from Healthy Treats in Bandra

A lot of people need fancy cakes with fondant, and request us to do beautiful fondant cakes with a healthy cake interior for their kids’ birthdays and their own celebrations. Last year, a lady called and requested a healthy cake with a beautiful fondant decor for her daughter’s birthday. The picture was of a 9 kg cake which she wanted in 3 kgs. We informed her that it would not look identical like the picture, and she agreed. We always do an advance for special cakes and told her as much. She agreed and then messaged to say that she is extremely unwell and if she could pay the entire amount on collecting the cake. We reluctantly agreed.

She then sent her sister to collect the cake, (which looked so beautiful), and started comparing it to the original 9 kg cake, screaming that we must either give it to her at a fraction of the price or else she wouldn’t take it. We were really stunned, and didn’t know how to react. And then the other lady and her husband kept calling and this aggressive lady (who was shouting), started clicking pictures of the cake from the weirdest angles and insisting on one-fourth of the price. It was a nightmare. She stormed off without the cake. Then the lady who had originally placed the order called and screamed that we are ruining her daughter’s birthday, and we must deliver to Versova. We then sent a delivery executive who took the cake to Versova and there this lady opened the door,  paid him a fraction of the cost and shut the door on his face. He called me and said, “May I give this back to her and give the cake away to charity?” I can’t tell you how tempted I was to do that, but we kept thinking of her little daughter and took a decision to leave it. Those entire three to four hours were really stressful, but it also taught us a lesson. Never to accept any special cake or bulk order without taking an advance.