The budding baker

With lots of experiments and trial runs being started in this pandemic, this budding baker, Aathika, started an Instagram page named @amuthu_cbe. Being trained to be a professional baker, she used this pandemic period to kick start her career. As her Instagram bio reads “Baking with love”, she asserts the motive behind starting this as a trial run. Aathika says, “I wanted to give life to my learning experience and started putting it on the plates. My love for baking instilled me the thought that this should be shared, enjoyed, and celebrated.” Through sharing her baked dishes as images in Instagram stories and posts, she says that she started getting many encouraging responses from her followers, which boosted her to work more.

Figure 1: Budding baker’s first butter cookies (credits- @amuthu_cbe)

Her husband helped her to follow her passion and they both, together, started the ‘Baking Sale’, which is on every weekend. They began it as an alpha run, by selling it to the closed circle of relatives and friends only. After getting an immense response from the initial customers, they were overjoyed. Aathika says, “This alpha run gave me a great experience, where I got to learn more about the customer expectations and business relations.”

Figure 2: Milk Bread (Credits-@amuthu_cbe)

Since the customers loved more innovation in the dishes, Aathika started trying out a new range of organic breads by replacing sugar with honey in milk, wheat, and ragi breads. After an extraordinary welcome for the weekend ‘Baking Sale’, she started putting sales on occasions, and received a huge response for the ‘Independence Day’ sale. In this sale, her tricolour bread and muffins were of huge demand.

Figure 3: Independence day baking with natural colours.

Aathika then says that, “I felt that this small lockdown startup has elevated to the next level, as I constantly receive orders for functions and occasions.” She mentions her unforgettable baking experience when she baked a rainbow cake for a baby shower function.

Figure 4: And it’s a rainbow cake for baby shower.

This story and experience of Aathika, is one such example of the budding bakers arising in the town during the pandemic.