Tinker with Temptation

Ankur Jamaican Mamba: A dark, moist fruit cake with Tia Maria. Chocolate Grinch: Nutty fudge with hints of toffee, caramel and French sea salt. Mocha Madness: Bittersweet chocolate cake with mocha custard. Chocolate Cheesecake: A wicked amalgamation of cream cheese and dark chocolate. Ahhh!

Now, before we chocolate and crème puff addicts get overly excited and spill morning coffees over our newspapers and go rummaging in our refrigerators for that last bit of Toblerone, let us say a short, sweet prayer for the wonderful people who create all these sweet temptations and keep us so contented with our lot...

Kishi Arora, who runs Foodaholics (the tempting confections featured above are from her menu) and Arshi Jhautia, owner of Cravings, both based in Delhi, love to get down and dirty with the sweet stuff.

The two ladies were also influenced by talented (female, mind you) cooks in the family during their childhood. Jhautia's mother had a fascinating array of cakes popping out of the oven, which had Arshi yearning to pick up the bowl and start doing her own whipping and churning. Arora, who grew up with her grandparents in Delhi because her parents were in Singapore, got her inspiration from her naani conjuring up exotic dishes in her kitchen.

The initial steps were taken far away from kitchens, though. Jhautia, who did her graduation and postgraduation in history from Delhi University before getting a degree in law from there, has no formal qualifications when it comes to baking. While she was doing a course in interiors, something told her she was on the wrong path and soon she started thinking of her own venture - which is how Cravings was born. It started off as a very simple affair, "using mom's old English ovens and a few cake tins". Marketing was done by word-of-mouth. She didn't advertise, but soon most food guides published by top newspapers started giving her kind reviews - which worked very well for her.

Arora joined the Shri Ram College of Commerce after passing out of the Air Force Bal Bharati School. It was only after getting her degree that she toyed with the idea of doing something with food, took a loan and went to study at the Culinary Institute of America. "I had in the period after college handled my dad's business in Delhi and decided I did not want to spend my life in front of a computer and so dropped the idea of going to the London School of Economics or Australia - as planned earlier."