Susan Juriansz is most certainly a lady who loves baking cakes. Her delectable goodies includetypical Sri Lankan cakes like Love Cake, Christmas Cake and Jaggery Cake as well as Ribbon Cake, Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Brownies.

She also makes Milk Toffee and Jaggery Toffee and even Marzipan Stuffed Dates.

Susan has perfected the art of baking as she’s been doing this for over 30 years. “I make my cakes and toffees using traditional Burgher recipes that my mother used to use,” she says adding that her recipe for Jaggery Toffee is her mum’s very own recipe.

I must say that her Jaggery Toffee is one of a kind – it is soft and not overly sweet with a perfectly smooth and nutty Jaggery flavour and there was just the right amount of cashew nuts to add to that nutty feel!

Susan stressed that she doesn’t make shaped cakes. She only does basic square or rectangle shaped cakes and says she has a number of clients who keep coming back for more, while her Jaggery Cakes, Love Cakes and Christmas Cakes are popular among those sending or taking cakes overseas while her Chocolate Cake is popular for office treats.

Susan worked for a number of years for Air Lanka (now SriLankan Airlines and says, “At the time when I had orders I would bake the cakes before I leave to work in the morning, come back home, ice it and pack it and have it ready for pick up.” Susan adds, “It was tough but since I enjoyed doing it, I didn’t feel as though it was an overly difficult task to take on.”

She says that her sister-in-law and her brother help her tremendously. “He helps me a lot when it comes to preparing and mixing the Christmas and Wedding Cakes,” she says smiling.

Her Love Cake was extremely moist and maintained the three layers that of the crust, centre and the sugar filled bottom while her Christmas Cake/ Wedding Cake was also very moist and she hadn’t skimped on ingredients in the least.

I tried out her Chocolate Cupcakes which had a chocolate filled centre – a pleasant surprise indeed! But it was her extremely chocolaty Chocolate Brownie that I really enjoyed – it was topped with chocolate ganache and had just the right amount of cashew nuts – I could have easily delved into another!

Apart from all these sweet treats, she takes on orders for savouries like Asparagus Sandwiches, traditional Bacon and Egg pastries and Chicken Pies.  So if you’d like to try out some of Susan’s goodies log on to her Facebook page titled ‘Sweet Magic’ (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweet-Magic/170292116512830?sk=info) for more details.

By Natasha Fernandopulle

Pics by Kanishke Ganewatte