One oven, one baker, twelve cakes a week
We could take more orders. We have tried it, and the cakes were worse.
Why the order book closes
Maabulhaa started in 2019 with a domestic oven and orders from people in the same building. It is still a home kitchen, and the oven is now a second one, but the shape of the business has not changed: one person bakes everything, and the week is closed once twelve cakes are in it.
That number is not modesty. A tiered cake takes three days across four stages, and two of those stages cannot be hurried by an hour. Sponges need to be cold before they are filled or the layers slide. Ganache needs to set before a second coat goes on. If a thirteenth order is squeezed into the same week, the cake that suffers is not the new one, it is the one that was already booked.
So the answer is sometimes no, and it is given early. We would rather tell somebody in March that their June Friday is already taken than take the order and hand them something rushed on the day it matters most.
Everything is made here, including the fillings. We do not buy in sponge, we do not use alcohol in any recipe, and the ingredients we cannot get locally are ordered in with enough margin that a late flight does not become your problem.
The two of us
Aishath Zeeniya
Bakes everything that leaves this kitchen and has done since 2019. She is the one who will tell you that your outdoor wedding cannot have bu...
Hawwa Nuha
Answers the messages, keeps the twelve orders a week honest, and drives the cakes. If she says a Friday is full, it is full.
Getting the cake to the day
Do you deliver, and what does it cost?
We deliver ourselves in an air conditioned car. Malé is 100 rufiyaa, Hulhumalé is 200 with a slot agreed the day before, and Villingili is 250 including the ferry.
No deliveries on Friday mornings and none after nine at night. Tiered cakes are always delivered by us rather than collected, and they are built at the venue.
Can I collect it myself?
Yes, from the flat in Henveiru, and it is the cheapest option. Come in a car with an empty flat boot. We will carry the cake down and put it in for you.
We will not hand a tiered cake or a sheet cake to somebody on a cycle or a motorbike. That is not a rule about trust, it is a rule about what happens at the first speed bump.
How long will the cake keep in this weather?
Out of the fridge, a ganache or fondant cake is happy for six hours in a cool room and about two in a hot one. Anything with fresh cream or fruit has to go back in the fridge within an hour.
Take it out of the fridge forty minutes before you cut it. A cake served straight from cold tastes of very little, which is the most common reason somebody is disappointed by a cake that was actually fine.
Come and taste before you decide
For wedding cakes we do a tasting box of four flavours for 250 rufiyaa, and it comes off the price if you order.