Heritance Ahungalla unveils $35 million sapphire-studded cake

– The ten-layer “Pirate’s Fantasy” first shown to Sri Lankan and English cricketers –

Heritance Ahungalla, one of Sri Lanka’s Aitken Spence Group’s premier hotels, has unveiled a $35 million sapphire studded cake, which the hotel hopes will be a serious contender for the “World’s most expensive cake” title this year.

Created by their celebrity Chef Dimuthu Kumarasinghe, the ten-layered “Pirate’s Fantasy” comes studded with jewels and different flavours that will symbolise the hotel’s beach front property on the coastal fishing village of Ahungalla.

A replica of the “Pirate’s Fantasy” cake was unveiled on March 26 to a distinguished audience that included top cricketers from Sri Lanka and the visiting England team.

 Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene, former skippers Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan and England’s Tim Bresnan, Ravi Bopara and Steven Flinn, were mesmerised as the sugar structure was unveiled atop a brass cannon gun.

“This signature cake, that symbolises the sea, is the first ever for a five-star beach resort, the jewel studded cake will be anyone’s fantasy. We are incredibly proud of Chef’s achievements,” said Refhan Razeen, General Manager, Heritance Ahungalla.

 Chef Kumarasinghe, or Chef DK as he is popularly known, is a celebrity in his own right, having won five individual gold medals at the Culinary Olympics in Germany and four golds at the Culinary World Cup in Luxembourg “The Pirate’s Fantasy, will undoubtedly be his unique masterpiece,” enthused Razeen.

 Chef DK has packed each cake layer with exotic ingredients like cinnamon, zucchini, purple yam, coconut chips, pistachio, rosemary, almond cookies, white chocolate, coconut meringue, baked cheese, sweet wine berry, pineapple, walnut, pumpkin and lemon.

For decorations he has dipped into a treasure trove of necklaces, bracelets, rings, brooches pendents, tie pins, cuff links, nose and toe rings.

He ends his sugar craft, by studding the cake with ten different sapphire stones, crowning the top with the most expensive and the rarest one, a “Padmaraja” or the ‘King Sapphire”.

Commending Chef DK on his mouth watering sugar craft, Sri Lankan cricket captain Mahela Jayawardene hailed it as a very innovative cake.

“Its a very unique design and concept,” said Jayawardena. “The looks matched the taste, which was an interesting collection of exotic flavours. It compliments the quality product and high standards maintained by Heritance Ahungalla.”

 Heritance Ahungalla have thrown in a few extras for customers who are tempted to tryout this masterpiece.

 Each purchase, allows the patron to entertain upto ten family and friends for a ten-course dinner hosted by the hotel.

The dinner will include ten kinds of award winning petites fours and the meal will end with the Pirate’s Fantasy.

 A professional photographer will be on hand to capture the memorable day, and the hotel will present the album of ten photographs to the buyer.

 “The unbelievably lucky person to be able to purchase this cake, will not only have the pleasure of owning this masterpiece, but will know the feeling of holding the crown jewels in one’s hand,” added Razeen.

A member of one of Sri Lanka’s largest diversified conglomerates, the Aitken Spence PLC, Heritance Ahungalla is part of the Aitken Spence Hotels family.

 The Pirate’s Fantasy is the latest in the line-up of product offerings, the Aitken Spence Hotel chain is offering to pamper well-heeled clients who patronise their resorts in Sri Lanka.

A Geoffrey Bawa designed hotel, Heritance Ahungalla secured the Sri Lanka Tourism award for the best five-star resort recently. The hotel’s culinary team last year won a haul of 145 medals at the 2011 Culinary Arts competition organised by the Chefs Guild of Sri Lanka.

Aitken Spence, is currently Sri Lanka’s largest resort operator and the largest international hotel operator in the Maldives. The group also manages a portfolio of hotels in India and Oman.