Dawn Images

How many times have you seen a fun idea on Instagram reels and wished you could recreate it in your own city? Three sisters did just that this weekend when they brought the Cake Picnic — an event born in the parks of San Francisco — to Karachi.

The idea is for everyone to bring a cake they’ve made to the picnic — the wilder, the better. Think colourful frosting, out-of-the-box flavours and fun decor. Everyone then gets a cake box and is able to fill it with slices of all the other cakes on display.

The original Cake Picnic was conceptualised by Elisa Sunga, who has now created a Cake Picnic Tour that travels around the world. She has also inspired versions of the Cake Picnic in other cities as well, including Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and, now, Karachi.

Haya Farid, who organised the event in the garden of her family home along with her sisters Irza Farid and Rija Ashraf, told Images that theirs is a family with a sweet tooth. Only one sister enjoys baking, but they are all “big dessert people”.

Their event on Saturday gathered about 140 people, including members of their family. Haya said they had about 130 registrations. Unlike the original Cake Picnic where the motto is no cake, no entry, the sisters created the No Bake Club which had 30 spots for people who just wanted to come eat cake. Those tickets were priced at Rs3,500, significantly higher than the regular tickets which were for Rs1,500.

In total, she believes they had around 104 to 105 cakes. Spread out over three long tables covered rather optimistically in white tablecloths, the cakes ranged from the more commonplace chocolate fudges and vanilla sponges, to rather unique salted caramel popcorn cakes, strawberry matcha cake rolls, and chocolate and plum cakes. The cakes kept on coming, each more elaborate than the next. While most of the cakes were set up by 6pm, even after everyone had attacked them, there were still stragglers strolling in, eyes wide and cakes in hand.

Many of the participants were small bakers, but just as many were cake enthusiasts. Most were young women, like Huda, a young graphic designer who arrived with a piña colada pineapple sponge cake decorated like a “beach holiday”. “I’d been waiting for the Cake Picnic to happen in Karachi for so long after seeing it happen abroad, so this was my dream come true! I would have done this myself if they hadn’t,” she laughed.

“I think this should happen more,” she said, viewing the event as a way to socialise. “After graduating I haven’t been too into socialising but this is a fun way to meet other people.”

There was also a sprinkling of young men there — though most of them were friends or family of the organisers. It was important to them to create a safe space for all the women attending.

That term — “a safe space” — was one used quite liberally at the picnic by the participants, and understandably so. Here was an event where everyone was polite and kind to each other despite being forced into close proximity while vying for slices of cake. It was also an event that highlighted girlhood — helping each other out with extra napkins or spoons, everyone sitting together and eating cake, despite not knowing each other and a lot of gushing over how cute the cakes were, which was understandable because some of them were adorable.

Tooba Haq, a food blogger who posts to her Instagram account Love At First Table, had one of the most anticipated cakes at the event — a group of people furtively hovered around it before people started digging in to the cakes, eager to get a slice before the cake was devoured. Hers was a chocolate cake with pistachio buttercream, dark chocolate ganache and crispy clusters, finished with brown buttercream, pistachios and hazelnuts.

“It felt good,” she said of her cake being so popular. “I was intimidated but also excited. It took a lot of love and time to make, but seeing everyone get hyped was worth it.” Like many others, she heard about the event through Instagram because many people on her following list were reposting the event page. The organisers later reached out to her to ask if she’d like to bring a cake.

“For Karachi, it’s a really well done event. I was expecting people to push and shove and be really rude, but everyone was super respectful and super nice. Everyone was helpful and it feels safe here, if that makes sense.” It did, in fact, make sense because that was a recurring theme among the participants.

Haya and her sisters saw Cake Picnics being hosted around the world and decided on the spur of the moment to host one. “We love hosting! We’ve grown up in a household where hosting is a big thing,” she explained.

And host they did. The event featured a stall by Black Honey, that served coffee and other drinks — what is an event in Karachi without coffee? — while tubs of complimentary icy-cold water were set up on the side. Pallets were littered across one side of the garden with cushions around them that served seating. High above the cakes were strands of fairy lights and pastel-coloured bunting.

They had their decorator mother’s help with the decor — but the rest was all them. The smaller scale of the event allowed for a more curated crowd. Some people were their friends and family, but many participants found out about them via Instagram. Their target was cake enthusiasts. Most were women in their 20s and 30s, she explained. “Some even brought their moms.” There were no single men or children allowed — with the exception of one young baker who came armed with a cake and his mother.

The response to the event wasn’t entirely expected. Haya said she was initially worried that people might not put effort or creativity into the cakes, or try out different flavours. The 20-year-old wasn’t even sure if they would show up on time.

The event was set to start at 5pm, and by 5:30pm there were quite a few cakes on the tables, which is fairly decent in a city where most people like to arrive fashionably late. By 6:30pm, most of the cakes were gone.

If the sisters are to continue hosting Cake Picnics as Haya said they plan to do, it is unlikely they’ll host them at their home. “Our DMs are full of people asking about the event, or saying they missed this one, when’s the next one being held or asking about if we’ll hold them in different cities,” she explained. “People are really interested!”

Her theory is that because this is the first-of-its-kind event in Pakistan, it has intrigued people. Judging from the level of curiosity, the next Cake Picnic will attract a wider audience and need to be on a larger scale. They’re still working out the details, but the sisters want to host another event in the winter.

They organised the picnic at the end of August because it suited them and the people around them who were heading off to university — the sisters are 20, 22 and 24 years old — but the next event will be one that accommodates more people in January or February.

As part of volume one of the Cake Picnic, they were quite careful with crowd control. No stags, no children, and personally reaching out to each of the participants via WhatsApp. If they are to expand, they’ll need a team and to expand their criteria. They’re considering group entries, but still want to keep it a safe space for “baking and socialising”.

My sisters and I are always looking for something fun to do in Karachi, but our parents’ main concern is usually how safe it is, Haya said. She explained that by curating the crowd, they get to provide a safe space for women to come, gain a community and have a fun day.

Their motive was not money — “It’s just to have a fun event that hasn’t been done before!” In Karachi, she said, people are always looking for fun things to do, other than going to the same old bazaars.

Haya’s older sister Irza wanted to host the event because she believed it was something they would want to attend too. “We knew people like us would like to go to something like this,” she explained. Judging from their DMs and the response on social media, there are many others just like them who are going to be counting the days till the next Cake Picnic.