Mumbai baker to showcase her 'dirty' cakes at LGBTQ Mela

Some of the cakes prepared by ‘dirty baker' Alefiya Jane

Adding rainbow-infused sprinkles at the LGBTQ Gulabi Mela, to be held at Hotel Beach Garden in Juhu on Sunday, is ‘dirty baker' Alefiya Jane. The 30-year-old will be showcasing her brand of risqué cakes at the event, a part of the annual Pride Month that celebrates the community.

Jane's stall, aptly named ‘The Dirty Bakery - Explicit Content', will showcase adult-themed cakes. She will also be selling the ‘coming out cake' that Jane is well known in the community for. The cakes are made for the occasion when a gay person declares their sexual orientation an/or gender identity. Jane's coming out cake is ‘a rainbow cake with a unicorn made of cream cheese and fondant.'

Her stall, aptly named ‘The Dirty Bakery - Explicit Content', will showcase adult-themed cakes at the event

Answering her calling
Baking is in Jane's blood. She grew up watching her mother and granny bake cakes, and always felt that the food industry was her calling. She quit her job at a media house eight months ago to take up baking full time. "I'd started a venture ‘She Bakes' earlier, which signified the presence of the women in my life who are no more. I wanted to keep them around me through baking," she told mid-day.

Showcasing at the mela, organised by the Humsafar Trust, a non-profit working for the community, is a coming-out of sorts for Jane herself, for it will be the first time she is going public with ‘The Dirty Bakery'. Prior to this, she has baked these cakes only at home.

Not denying the wild side
"I think it's very hypocritical of people to look down upon sexuality, when it is at the core of all the life you see around. Sometimes my friends jokingly ask, ‘Do you also provide strippers?'" Jane mentions, recalling some reactions she's received about her venture. From breast-shaped cakes to liquor-infused and whipped-cream spurting penis-shaped cakes, Jane bakes them all. She says, "No matter how much people camouflage or try to keep it under wraps, they cannot deny that they have a wild side. There has to be somebody to cater to those needs. Honestly, it is kind of liberating to see so many women come up to me and say they want this shape, this size or this scene," said Jane, adding, "Dirty bakery caters to the guilty pleasures of everyone." Among the bizarre requests Jane's received one includes someone asking, "me to make a gravity defying penis with alcohol coming out of it," she said.

For the right audience
With some of her closest friends in the LGBTQ community, Jane feels she would be catering to the right audience at the mela, "By right I mean open, wild, raw and free. The community is so honest; they are who they are, unapologetically, which is exactly what Dirty Bakery stands for, so I connect deeply with them. It's profound respect and admiration that has brought me to the Mela."

Richa Vashista, mental health counsellor at the Humsafar Trust says, "The most important thing is that people feel safe in the spaces we have for different events during Pride Month. It is a beautiful opportunity and an example of inclusiveness within the community."