|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 25 January 2004 |
 |
|
 |
Magazine |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
by Farah Macan Markar Welcome to the Clement Family. Cake Designers and Constructors. There's Mrs.Clement, who does the average cake making and cooking. The two Misses Clements, the young cake designers of the family and old Mr.Clement, the veteran cake designer of the lot. Surrounded by sugar and spice and everything nice (as in butter, sugar, icing sugar, flour, marzipan, essence, flavouring, cream, milk and other cakey ingredients), this article's gonna be about the two young Misses Clements, nineteen year old Dinusha and sixteen year old Shanika.
Having a veteran cake designer of a dad, being on the kitchen table, seeing his fingers at work everyday, by the age of four, Dinusha would make small cakey creations such as sugar flowers. Shanika's first experience with cake, reveals Dinusha, was when she was an year old. "Father had just finished with a birthday cake he had done for an order. My sister came along and dug her finger right into the middle of it, which was the end of the cake". By the age of six both Dinu and Shani were not only making and designing their own birthday cakes, but had begun taking orders for relatives and other people they knew. A business they still do today. Says their father, from whom they've learnt it all and is their biggest influence in life "I never discouraged them in whatever they did. If they made a mess while playing about with the flour and butter, I never scolded them. Instead I'd tell them to clean it up afterwards. It's important while guiding children, to let them learn and discover things on their own. It's that which brings out creativity and originality".
Having studied at Good Shepherd Convent upto her O/L's Dinusha's currently in at Musaeus College. Doing English, French and Art, she'll be sitting for the big A/L's this coming April. Of being in the Arts Stream Dinusha says she chose it for it is related to all aspects in life. Other than cake construction and designing she also does art as a hobby, painting on a variety of subjects from landscapes, figure drawings to the abstract. Her favourite medium is Oils. Born on August 30th 1987, younger sister Shanika just finished her O/L's this December. She loves music and her father bought her a piano which will now be delivered to the house as her O/L's are over. "I can't wait to start playing" she says. Of cake designing and construction the two sisters say it's hard work, patience and skill. "When doing a cake you need to be meticulous, precise and creative" says Shanika. "But the more you do it the easier it becomes" says Dinusha. "Learning is a never ending experience, whether in cakes or otherwise" adds their father. Having grown up very much in a self supportive manner from childhood days, buying his own food while staying with his parents, Clement wants his daughters to be self sufficient and independent in life. "For this it is necessary for children to be taught responsibility at an early age and encourage them to earn their own living, even though a child. It is also important for girls to have a job in which they have the choice of working from home, in a self/family supportive manner as we are doing right now". Wedding cake structures are built upon wedding themes. The theme of the cake has to match the theme of the wedding, for which customer and cake designer need to share and discuss ideas. "So doing this kind of job" says Dinusha "Is also about PR and learning to blend and be creative at the same time". Dinusha's first wedding cake design theme was "Swan's Wedding", which saw bride, groom, bride's maid, flower girl and page boy swans perched all around it. Doing cake making and construction for school Prize Days, Commerce Days and such occasions, the sisters have not taken part in much local cake competitions. At times their father's the judge and secondly the competitions are like a war. Says Clement "The people here take competition to an extreme limit, where it becomes quite ugly. Plus a lot of people don't know the proper rules and regulations of the event". Of the few competitions the two siblings have participated in, they've both won first prize in the All Island Teachers Domestic Home Science Award. Cake designing and construction as I've said in the beginning is the Clement Family Business. R.L. Clement introduced this in a professional way to Sri Lanka. His daughters want to build on this and take it to a new dimension. Dinusha, whose ambition once was to be an architect, says cake designing and construction has become her form of architecture today. Lastly says R.L. himself "If you believe in yourself and what you are doing, you will succeed and somehow get there". |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
Dinusha, winner of the Japanese Gold Medal for Wedding Cake
Construction 2001 and the 2002 Grand Prix Award, and Shanika Gold
Medallist of the Sugar Craft Birthday Card Award in the British Sugar
Craft Guild 2000, have been involved in the cake field ever since they
were toddlers.
Clement himself having won the Japanese Gold Medal Award in 1999,
Dinusha clinched it the very next year and was subsequently the youngest
participant to ever win it. The brown, ivory and cream, star flowered,
ivory leaved and baby sprithed, three tiered wedding cake construction's
name was "It's A Dream". Says Dinusha, "The building of the
cake was very much like a dream in itself. That's why I named the cake as
I did". Getting an award for an international competitions given
Dinusha a lot of encouragement and self confidence. "When making
cakes I'm happy. Having a father's whose an expert in it can be
overwhelming. So getting these awards have helped me see that I too can do
it".
