Christmas treats for friends, family and even pets!

New Delhi, Dec 24: What is a festival without its food, more so a Christmas without its share of cakes, mulled wines and turkey roast. A host of bakeries and restaurants are hopping on Santa's sleigh with special offerings.

'Angels in my Kitchen', a patisserie here has stocked its counters with plum cakes, specially made for Christmas, in various sizes. They are also offering a Christmas Plum Pudding which is bathed in rum to be set aflame on the Christmas Eve.

Other treats available at their outlets include mince pies, Christmas cookies and Yule Log cakes. "We have made a Gingerbread Village with a total of 5 houses, including a shoe house, made entirely of ginger cookies. We also have an edible Christmas tree which is 6 feet tall," says Bijoy Majhi of Angels.

All these installations, he says are on display at their Cyber Hub outlet in Gurgaon. The Leela Palace has set up a life-size gingerbread house.

Fashioned out of 1200 bricks of freshly baked gingerbread on the outside and over 1000 gingerbread tiles on the inside. It also includes royal icing bejeweled with wreaths, traditional Christmas lights, stars, baubles, and gold foil decorations.

The sweet shop at The Imperial, 'La Baguette' is dishing out conventional Christmas treats like Ginger cakes, cookies, plum cakes, plum pudding and Yule log cakes.

The plum cakes are being made in the traditional manner with dry fruits used in the cake being soaked in rum for a considerable time before being baked. Another offering at 'La Baguette' are cute 'Snowman' cup cakes in red velvet flavour available at Rs 190 per piece.

The bakery is also building a ginger bread house, the size of an average room to celebrate the festival in their premises. With people across different religions participating in celebrations, menus are customised according to demand.

Chef Rakesh Pandey of the The Park says the hotel has set up ham stations and live turkey carving sessions. Cafe Knickerbockers, a designer cake shop offering only vegetarian cakes in Kailash colony has dabbed red, green and gold, the colours of the season as they say, on many cakes.

"We're doing a lot of cupcakes, cookies and plum cakes. Traditionally plum cakes are soaked in rum, so we do this two months in advance for the flavour to penetrate well," says Rttika Takhr of Cafe Knickerbockers.

Takhr shares that people are demanding traditional goodies to celebrate the festival, "so stars, candy canes, Santa Claus, elves, glittering trees are being made in hundreds".

PTI