Meet the bakers - Part 1

Cup cakes, Cakes, Muffins, Brownies anyone? Various flavors, shapes, sizes ? Sweet tooth? OK, I can see a lot of hands go up. All you need to do is to haul yourself up to Crimson Chakra on the 30th of this month, at 1530 hours. Come and watch 14 home bakers show case their goodies, and who knows, your next birthday party would have the yummies baked by one of these talented ladies !

And, a big thanks to KP Balakumar, for asking me to cover this event. :-) I'm so honored. :D

I'll be doing a series of posts on this event, covering as much info as possible.

This event is hosted by Home Bakers Guild. HBG is founded by KP Balakumar and Nanditha Sashidharan of The Sugar Hut fame.

KPB is a stock market trader by profession. Stock markets, food and sport are his three biggest interests. He's been playing tennis ever since he walked in diapers, was a top state ranked tennis player, captained the Madras university tennis team and continue to play tennis. His passion for food has taken him to two different avenues, a food blogger through his website www.thefoodiediaries.in and now, through the Home Bakers Guild. And KPB hopes to do his bit in helping these bakers in any way he can.

I'm missing a couple of my favorite bakers in this event, and I do hope you can make it next time. Marsha - are you listening? :)

I'm starting off this series with a few questions I bombarded KPB with and he was kind enough to respond.

Excerpts below:

D: Idea of starting HBG?
KPB: forum that connected home bakers from anywhere so that there was a lot of exchange of information and ideas. The larger objective was to connect these home bakers with the ultimate customer using the power of social media. Rather than have each baker try and promote herself/himself through their own pages, a forum like the Home Bakers Guild would be a common platform through which customers would come to know about the wide variety on offer so that they needn't go back to the same retail chains for their orders for birthdays and parties.

D: Where do want to take HBG to?
KPB: The potential of the Home Bakers Guild is amazing. I hope it becomes a forum for Home Bakers not just in India but around the world. We are just a month old and we already have over 30-35 bakers from around the country as members and 100's of baking fanatics/just want to drool over the pictures kind of folks. Our membership as of today stands at nearly 700.

D: Future plans for HBG?
KPB: well, if anyone thought that they got the best desserts at the star hotels or the french loaf's of the world, they are terribly mistaken. The wealth of talent these home bakers possess and the vastness of their repertoire has to be seen to be believed. I want the forum to be rich from the experiences of the bakers and economically beneficial to the many talented ladies that are trying to make a career out of it. The Showcase events are towards accomplishing that objective for the home bakers, to open up new markets and customers to the home bakers. We will have 3-4 such showcase events through the year and also organize workshops like food photography so that bakers can take their business to the next level.  We want all the bakers to ultimately be that way, hands full with orders..and hopefully open their own stores at some point.

Poster Design  - Nanditha Sashidharan


Coming up: Interviews with Nanditha and the 14 lovely ladies who are going to bake(!!) our evening on the 30th !