If you are celebrating World Baking Day and have ended up with a baking fail, do not feel bad. Put everything away and be motivated by successful bakers from our own City of Joy. First baking experiences mostly do not go as per our expectations — a fact that most bakers would attest to. Like any other culinary skill, baking too needs to be practised to perfection. With utmost curiosity, My Kolkata buzzed four popular Kolkata bakers to learn about their first-ever baking experience…
Priyanka Kundu Biswas: The Great Baking Powder Omission
Priyanka Kundu Biswas, semi-finalist, MasterChef India Season 7
Priyanka Kundu Biswas emerged as the queen of desserts at MasterChef India Season 7. Her baking skills were highly appreciated by the judges — chefs Ranveer Brar, Vikas Khanna and Garima Arora. Primarily a homebaker, Priyanka had already bagged awards from several national and international baking competitions. Back from the reality show, she is now successfully running her home bakery, from where she trains aspiring bakers too. Her baking tips on Instagram also go viral. However, Priyanka was not always an accomplished baker. She, too, was an amateur who ended up with a baking fail with her first cake!
“I was in Class IX or X, about 14-15 years old, when I tried baking a cake at my home in Delhi. It is a very funny story. We would use an empty condensed milk tin to measure the ingredients. That’s what I saw my mother doing. That time, we used to have those big round ovens for baking,” recalled Priyanka. After assembling the ingredients and spending a long time to mix everything and bake, Priyanka's first cake mix went into the oven. The teenager was excited, but soon, she got the biggest baking lesson of her life. “When the cake was done, it never rose. It was a flat, hard, burnt disc that did not look like a cake at all! I realised that I forgot to put in the baking powder! For the next few days my brother made fun of me and showed it to everyone!” said Priyanka.
Kirti Bhoutika: Cake fails to sweet success
Kirti Bhoutika, winner, MasterChef India Season 5
Kirti Bhoutika emerged as the winner of MasterChef India Season 5. She runs her own bakery in Salt Lake — Sugarplum Cakery. Also a food content creator on Instagram, Kirti’s reels often go viral for her innovative and easy-to-make recipes. Many of her followers have learnt several baking techniques from her videos. But Kirti too had baking fails. Not just one, but many!
“I was 16 or 17 when I started baking. I do not remember when I baked my first cake, because I ended up baking multiple unsuccessful ones. They would either be hard as a rock, or undercooked. Some didn't even look like cake!” But the young baker did not give up. With a passion to learn baking, Kirti joined a one-day workshop in the city. “I decided to join this class where the lady leading the workshop taught us very basic cakes like marble cakes etc. I attended that and came back home to try what we were taught. After so many failed attempts in the past, that one attempt after the workshop was my first success. I made my first-ever successful chocolate cake that looked like a cake finally! That gave me so much confidence!” said Kirti, who then went on to invest in baking equipment and ingredients after that. There has been no looking back since then.
Vikas Kumar: A shell-shocked story!
Chef Vikas Kumar, director, food production, APEEJAY Surrendra Park Hotels Limited
The young boy studying at IHM Kolkata did not think he would be working with Flurys, one of the most iconic confectioneries in the city. Not after what happened at one of his baking classes. Chef Vikas Kumar, now the director, food production, APEEJAY Surrendra Park Hotels Limited, had a ‘hilarious’ baking massacre when he was pursuing hotel management at IHM Taratala. The chef said, “I grew up as a pure vegetarian and I never saw eggs at home. My knowledge of working with eggs was absolutely zero. Back then, I was assisting one of my seniors in the college in a bakery class. We were following a recipe where it was written that we had to use whole eggs. Now, in baking, the whole egg means using the yolk and white portion. But to me, whole eggs meant the egg with the shell! I ground the eggs and put them in the mixture. Need I say what happened? My senior cracked up and laughed his lungs out. I became the laughing stock. But thankfully, our professor realised why that happened. He scolded the senior for not explaining it to me properly.” Vikas also made such mistakes during his formative years as a chef, but now he looks back at them with great humour and nostalgia. He feels, “To learn something new, it is important to make mistakes!”
Alisha Alexander: Little baker, big dreams
Alisha Alexander, fourth-generation owner, Saldanha Bakery with mother Debra Alexander
You wouldn’t not bake bad if you had the opportunity to grow up in one of the city’s most iconic bakeries. Alisha Alexander, the fourth-generation owner of Saldanha Bakery held up the legacy of her family even when she baked her first cake. It was a day to remember for the Saldanhas as their little daughter took her first baby steps in baking. Alisha recalls, “I was very young when I baked my first cake. The excitement was at its peak! It was exciting to get all the equipment together, weighing all the raw materials, and breaking the eggs. I remember readying the cake and wanting to put it immediately in the oven. But sadly, I had to continue mixing it well.” Alisha remembers the long wait while the cake was in the oven. “I stood in front of the oven, mesmerised as my cake rose. The aroma wafted in the air and I kept tugging at my grandmother to see if the cake was ready. I was thrilled when my cake was done. I can’t ever forget the excitement, the impatience of that experience!”
