Moreish delights

By Cassandra Mascarenhas

Picture this: A chocolate cupcake topped with a thin cracked crust and candy sprinkles – seemingly standard fare. Bite into it; the crust crumbles in your mouth, releasing the slightly bittersweet taste of rich chocolate. By the time you get to the soft, gooey centre with traces of hazelnut, liberally infused with chocolate chips, you’re sated, but the cupcake has to be finished, right down to the very last crumb! Proceed to lapse into a sugar coma.

Melshika Weerasinghe, the proprietor of Moreish Cupcakes, produces the delicious chocolate lava cupcake described above and many more scrumptious goodies, both sweet and savoury. Operating from her home, ably assisted by a team consisting of her parents, husband and her four-year-old son, Melshika’s entry into the culinary scene was by mere chance.

“Back in 2011, I had placed an order for a cake for my son’s second birthday but at the last moment, the person who had undertaken the order cancelled, which put me in a bit of a fix. I ended up making the cupcakes for his birthday and everyone who attended loved them!  It was my friends who encouraged me to start this and so I did, in June 2011,” she explained.

She considers the chocolate lava cake, her love cake and Christmas cake to be amongst her specialities, the latter two made from her mother’s recipes. “The recipes are closely guarded secrets,” she added. Why the name ‘Moreish’ Cupcakes? “It literally means ‘I want more’ in terms of food. A play on the word. It’s also because my son’s name begins with the letter M.”

What she considers her biggest challenge so far since commencing the business, was in December when she had a couple of orders come in at the same time and amounted to over 1,000 cupcakes. “It was incredibly hectic because my parents were in Australia at the time and I pretty much had to handle everything myself but I managed to complete them all on time – definitely my biggest achievement.”

When it comes to cake orders, she undertakes work involving baking, frosting and detailing, as well as wedding pieces. She generally requires four days prior notice, a week for bigger orders. Melshika also uses several tactics to differentiate herself from the plethora of culinary businesses operating online and to engage with her customers better.

She has a selection of VIP clients, people who order from her frequently who then go on to receive discounts from her depending on the size of the orders placed. Melshika is also very active on her Facebook page and frequently holds promotions, competitions and trivia quizzes, and even randomly picks out fans who then receive goodie hampers. Currently ongoing is the Valentine promo and winners stand to win her speciality love cake. “I always want to give a bit more to my clients and fans. It really isn’t only about making profits.”

Melshika admitted that she isn’t professionally qualified in baking but considers her abilities a God-given talent and also attributed it to the fact that when growing up, her house was always full of food, given her mother’s similar passion for cooking and baking. “My mom is a superb cook, she cooks for everybody and I’ve inherited that from her.”

A family of foodies also help her cause – and her four-year-old son takes his role as official taster very seriously, demanding the first bite from anything she makes. “He fights for his cupcakes!” she said, laughing. “I do most of the baking and the rest of the family helps out with the buying of ingredients and cleaning up.”

The work gives her immense job satisfaction, independence and time to spend with her family but Melshika has no intention of stopping here – she has very ambitious plans for the long-term. The recent addition of savouries to her menu is a step in this direction. With a wide range of snacks and bites, Moreish Delights, the savouries arm of her business, will also have burgers and dinner meals on the menu very soon.

She has plans of starting up a dessert bar with a small dinner area five years from now, a casual and cosy set-up very different from the current dining scene in Colombo. “It will be a lot of work but I want to build up a good plan for the future, one that can be taken forward successfully.”

“I’m not much of a chocoholic,” she added, much to my amazement. “My comfort food is peach angel cake with a little love cake once in awhile and sometimes vanilla cupcakes with chocolate chips and almond flakes.”

Check out Moreish Cupcakes (sweets) and Moreish Delights (savouries) on Facebook for a comprehensive list of Melshika’s treats and to place orders.