Meet the Bakers - Tasneem Ayub

Wasn't I waiting for this opportunity! To write about one of my favorite people, an amazing cook, a very warm and humble person, eager to learn even at this age, a wonderful human being who has no airs despite what she has achieved; I've been one of the fortunate recipients of her love and affection (and chiding too at times), not to mention the yummy food each time I dropped by announced / unannounced.

Oh! did I mention her amazing sense of fashion? You have to see her closet to believe it!

In conversation with Tasneem Aunty (as she's fondly called)

D: A little bit about your family, Aunty?
T: My father was a businessman and my mother was the HOD (Eng Literature) and later the principal of Ethiraj College. I am the youngest of 7 :)

D: So when did your initiation into cooking happen?
T: I perhaps learnt to hold a ladle even before I learnt to read / write :). The 11 am meal used to be my favorite; I used to cook up a storm making lamb chops in a mud pot and all this was made on firewood.

D: Your inspiration?
T: My mother, most definitely; She would ensure that we always ate healthy with the choicest fresh ingredients; She'd sometimes source the products herself and prepare the best food for us. Then, my brother who was a big foodie and a great cook himself, was a big influence on my cooking. My brothers and sisters who always used to bully me around and make me do all the work ;-) . And of course, my husband and son who are the guinea pigs for all my recipe trials. Not to mention, Sandhesh Reddy, Chef and entrepreneur!

D: Wow! That's some inspiration. So what are your passions other than cooking?
T: I love gardening and love to potter around. (Psst: She's crazy about collecting some lovely cutlery and crockery. The collection is so huge that you could almost display them in a museum)

D: Your husband - Ayub uncle and your son Feroze are racers, national champions! What's the dinner table conversation like?
T: Ha ha! Do you even need to ask! Of course, it's CARS.

D: Oh! But I remember uncle said in an interview on Star Sports, that you always talk about food at the dinner table! 
T: Haha! It's always cars and it annoys me to no end! My yelling falls on deaf ears :-(

D: What's your forte as far as cooking is concerned?
T: My forte has been biriyanis and the typical muslim sweets / desserts. This Ramzan I'd made 12 different varieties!

D: How has HBG inspired you?
T: If not for KP who nudged me into this, this would have never happened! :)

Tasneem Aunty is also a big fan of organic food and AMC cookware. She'd applied for catering college, but the conservative family background made her mother hide the acceptance form! ;-) 

She also blogs at http://ammeeskitchen.blogspot.in and http://theeffervescentcook.blogspot.in

To taste the amazing badam sweet and khajur made by Tasneem Aunty, please come to the Baker Showcase on Feb 2nd.

Please follow the Food and All - https://www.facebook.com/Foodandall page to keep yourself updated!

Meet the Bakers - Karthika Shravanthi

As we move into the next season of the Baker Showcase, we bring you a scoop on each of the most talented and creative bakers who are taking part in this showcase. We continue the tradition and today's blog post will feature perhaps the youngest baker in this showcase - Bakeman aka Karthika Shravanthi.

In conversation with Karthika, who graduated last year from SSN College of Engineering

D: Bakeman - A big batman fan? :)
K: I started learning baking during the time when The Dark Knight Rises movie released! Plus I am a Nolan fan :D When I posted the pictures on FB , I named the album Bakeman Begins , which eventually became the name of my home baked goodies :)

D: You are open only on weekends and Mondays. What's the funda?
K:  I work as a Software Engineer in Bangalore. I travel to Chennai every weekend. More like a weekend entrepreneur. So Bakeman Begins is my weekend work :) Like most of them, I am also a midnight baker. I make use of that 48 hrs(weekend) to the fullest ! I start baking as early as 4 30 am just after reaching Chennai from Bangalore :P

D: How has Home Bakers Guild and this showcase helped you in your baking / promoting your business?
K: Home Bakers Guild is all the reason I am on Facebook. I always say, I log in to FB to check out HBG more than my profile :D. HBG is a wealth of knowledge and experience. Tons of thanks to KP for that. Because of HBG , my learning curve that taken a steep rise. It is such an inspiration.

I am also extremely thankful to 2 people at this point. Marina Charles (My first Baking Instructor ) and Joonie Tan for making me who I am today.

D: A  bit about your dancing?
K: I started learning Bharatnatyam at the age of 9. I did my Arangetram when I was 13. Regular performer in Natyanjali Dance festival ,Chidambaram till I graduated. I was expecting to have a career in dance, but later my focus shifted to work in Bangalore.

D: And your first commercial order would be?
K: This Diwali was the first time when I decided I would put up a menu and take bulk orders from friends, family & colleagues. Trust me I had no idea how much effort it required single-handedly finishing up all the promised orders. I applied for a couple of days off from work and traveled to Chennai (carrying all the necessary ingredients) that I usually buy from Bangalore. When I consolidated all the orders, I realized that except for 2-3 orders all of them were for my colleagues in Bangalore. I burnt my midnight oil and managed to whip up about 80 muffins, 50 cake pops , a hundred cookies, tartlets and kilos of sponges. I still cant believe I brought them all to Bangalore all by myself. Many thanks to the SRM bus driver who helped me with it ! :)

A huge Dexter and Nolan fan, from my alma mater, I am super happy to know that Karthika and I have quite a bit in common :)

Look foward to your yummilicious goodies very soon - at The Baker Showcase!









And if you want to grab some of those mouth watering delicacies, please drop in to Asan Memorial School on Feb 2nd between 2 and 6 pm!

Stay tuned to Food and All - https://www.facebook.com/Foodandall - for more updates.

Meet the Bakers - Ashwini Radhakrishnan

Meet child psychologist-and-student counselor-turned-baker, the Chennai-Bangalore chica - Ashwini Radhakrishnan. After helping people with their problems all day long, this pretty lady's therapy for herself was Baking. Getting detached from work and doing something completely different, is perhaps the best therapy. I have to agree. 

Excerpts:

D: Having been in Chennai all along, what difference do you see between the 2 cities, in terms of the baking scene, ingredients, market?
AR: Well, I moved to Bangalore only a year ago and with the help of a friend I started gathering info about where I could pick up ingredients. Am still yet to explore a few more markets before I really give my opinion on this aspect.

My favorite place to shop for ingredients is still Waltax Rd, Chennai. They keep upgrading their selection and give you suggestions, which I feel is great.

From the little that I’ve seen, I feel there is not much of a difference in terms of availability of ingredients between the two cities.

D: Do you have a day job or is baking full time?
AR: This is more or less my full time job. I enjoy being a homemaker and baking being my hobby and passion has motivated me to pursue this commercially as well.

D: Do you have a FB page or a website where you showcase your goodies to the public? 
AR: I have not advertised as yet, but FB is definitely on the charts. 

D: How do you think, HBG and the showcase, will help the home baker in you?
AR: I believe the Home Bakers Guild is a good platform to promote home bakers like myself who are just starting off. In a new city it's definitely a huge catalyst to exchange ideas with other bakers and meeting prospective clients.

D: What's your theme for this showcase? What do you plan to bring to appease us sweet toothies?

AR: To be very honest I have not really worked on a theme. I love trying out new recipes and also challenge myself to create something new. So, guess you sweet toothies can definitely look forward to something different. Come see!!

When she's not baking, she does some sketching and also accompanies her husband, Conan Dumenil, on nature tours and camps. Conan's company aims at creating awareness on nature conservation.

(Psst: She first sent me a picture of herself and later decided to change it, because she wanted to be seen along with her cakes :P )

Meet the bakers - Vaishali Maniar

I'm kick starting the Bangalore Chapter of "Meet the bakers" with the one who has initiated this event in namma Bengaluru. Meet Vaishali Maniar of Crumbs, the Bombay girl, who still hasn't surrendered her Mumbai cell phone number, because she is still clutching the last straw (says her husband - Prithivi Rajaram, a Tamilian,  from whom she claims she's getting all her Tamil accent!)

Excerpts:

D: You've been baking since you were a teenager. What are the memories of your first cake?
VM: My grand mom is a super awesome cook and makes the most amazing moong dal sheera. Her birthday was around the corner and I wanted to do something very special for her.  Being a Jain, she would not eat a cake from an outside bakery.I used to bake brownies then, however had never tried my hand at baking a cake. Hence, my very first cake was ‘born’!

D: What do you miss most about Mumbai?
VM: Oh, I miss everything about Bombay (yes, I still call it Bombay), my family,the liveliness, the buzz, the spirit, street shopping at Colaba Causeway, the chaos, the fact that you could walk on the street at 11 pm and not feel insecure… the list is endless. I am and will always be a Bombay girl :-) (I have to agree with Vaishali on that score, having lived in Mumbai for an year, I still miss that crazy city)

D: How do you find the dessert / baking scene in Bangalore?
VM: Baking is a great stress buster!  It is amazing how simple ingredients such as butter, flour and sugar can result in some amazing creations. The fact that we have 15 home bakers plus others who are wait listed to be a part of the Showcase, shows how popular the home baking scene is in Bangalore. The other day when I met all the participants, there was a feeling of bonhomie. We spoke about how we dreamed about dessert recipes and very often, find ourselves waiting for any occasion which will serve as an excuse to bake!

D: Where do you source your ingredients from?
VM: I source most of my ingredients locally from Nilgiris, IBCA, General Additives and Spar.

D: What's your specialty in baking?
VM: My specialties are the gooey fudgy brownies and the zesty orange cake. The zesty orange cake made without any preservatives, oozes of fresh orange flavour-  it is a must have, if I may say so myself :) (OK, I have started drooling now and the picture Bala posted isn't helping my case - Aug 4th - where art thou - sigh! )

D: What's your theme for this showcase?
VM: I have decided to go with fruit flavours and of course I will be bringing along my famous gooey fudgy brownies (you can never go wrong with chocolate).

Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting Vaishali Maniar - Look at her, proudly drooling at her own cakes! Oh yeah, she hits the gym trying to shed the weight she gains by sampling all her creations. She also dabbles in content writing in her free time. 

Meet the Bakers - Bangalore

Close on the heels of the roaring success of the Chennai edition of The Baker Showcase, Home Bakers Guild presents to you the Bangalore Edition of this event. With 15 participants and less than a month to go, all we can do at this moment is drool over the photographs of these divine-awesome-lovely-yummy goodies.

Follow the event here - https://www.facebook.com/events/444591822227990/


If you are in Chennai, pack your bags and bring your sweet tooth to the Garden City of India, namma Bengaluru. Trust me, it will be a weekend worth its weight in cakes. 


If you are already in Bengaluru, you'd still need to beat the traffic to reach here on time. From my past experience with the Chennai event, it's perfectly alright to say that the early bird gets the cakes. If I were you, I'd be at the venue an hour earlier ! ;-)


Keep watching this space for interviews on our bakers and the exotic goodies they are going to bring to the showcase !


August 4 it is, at Atta Galatta, Koramangala. Map below ! See you soon !


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