Kolkata Food Bloggers: Bake Sale 2014

Inauguration by Ch ef Pranay, Executive Chef, Swissotel Kolkata.

On 13^th December, 2014, home bakers, bloggers and food enthusiasts of Kolkata had took part in a Bake Sale organized by Kolkata Food Bloggers. A first of its kind, this bake sale aims to introduce the public to delicious goodness of homemade treats freshly made by home bakers.

The ‘Kolkata Food Bloggers’ (KFB) group was formed on 27^th January 2012 and at present comprises of a team of more than 20 food bloggers from the city who work on recipe development, restaurants/events/product reviews and food photography. This Bake Sale is their first major food related event and many more such events and workshops are already being planned. “Many of our [KFB] members are home bakers themselves and for our first independent event, it seemed like a natural extension to showcase our work along with other home bakers of the city”, says one of the founding members of KFB.

The concept of this Bake Sale is simple: Everything sold here is homemade and the proceeds go to the individual bakers. This event provides a platform for the home bakers to promote their passion and showcase their work.

About the home bakers

Riddhi Kapoor of MyLittleCupCakes - Hi! I'm a stay at home mummy who is passionate about tiny delicious cakes topped with sweet fluffy buttercream...so why not share the love :) After years of baking for friends and family, I have now decided to share my passion for baking cupcakes and all things yummy with the world! This is going to be my first Bake Sale.

Priyanka Pattanayak of Sweet Somethings by Piu - It took me an MBA degree, a marriage, a kid and some crazy friends to discover my true passion - baking. Something that started out of sheer interest has now become my full blown obsession. Since then I have been on an exciting journey of experimenting with different combinations of flavours, ingredients and techniques.

Aditi Ghosh of In Good Taste by Craft Factory - I had been baking for friends forever, and they offered to pay for my goodies and promote them as well. This came as a blessing, and I further forayed into cake decorating as well, and I loved it! Baking and cake decorating is therapeutic and calming for me, by way of being involved deeply in the precision of weighing, measuring, and following techniques and processes to the tee. I own a small business – Craft Factory, through which I promote Hobby crafting, helping people of all ages to experience the immense satisfaction of doing something creative. In Good Taste is my venture to promote healthy baking and the endless possibilities in the art of cake decorating.

Reshma Nilofer Raha of Her Majesty's Pattiserie - I am an amateur home baker to whom baking is a meditative passion.My quest for healthy and chlorestrol free bake started on a December morning in 2012. My job is to Pilot ships, yes I am India's first female marine pilot and the only one. This is a job which is tiring and did not generously give me much time to bake. I would be burning night oil baking (and tasting of course!!) Or baking early morning after working the whole night making it 24 hour shifts! But that was the length I would go to feed my family healthy food. Very recently I have started taking orders to share how healthy can be tasty too. So here's a big welcome to my venture...'Her Majesty's Pattiserie' - fresh and healthy home bakes!"

Urvashi Shivnani of A Sweet Surrender - I'm a 24 year old who studied mass media at the undergrad level. After graduation at the age of 20, while looking for a job at a media house, I would spend my free time baking. It has been a hobby since a very young age when making cakes out of box mixes was a ritual for every birthday in the house. From an Easy-Bake Oven at the age of 7, I slowly graduated to using a "proper" oven with from-scratch recipes. I was always the one taking home baked cookies to class parties in school. I have gone from making simple cupcakes and cakes to making bespoke birthday and wedding cakes (one as big as 14lb!). From there to now, the journey has been long, exciting and exhausting....but mostly exciting.

About the bloggers of Kolkata Food Bloggers

Kamalika Chakraborty of ika’s/Silence Sings –

Baking is my passion from my childhood. But got a chance to bake only after I got married. But then I understood that baking is not my cup of tea where I used to bake hard rocky cakes. When my daughter turns two I again tried my hand to make healthy cakes form the little one. And it is only for my daughter that I got inspired and started baking successful cakes. And now from last two years I am professionally baking from my home. After creating this Kolkata Food Bloggers group another dream came true where we were able to organise an event exclusively for the home bakers. Hope this will bring us success and we are foreseeing for many more.

Archita Chanda Ray of My Food My Life –

I have never been a pro baker as I m a very impatient person! But the Kolkata Food Bloggers Bake sale pushed me to become one. Baking has made me a calmer person and provided me with a platform to showcase my love for food one step further. So with butterflies on my stomach I have baked a lot of goodies for the sale which I hope my friends and the visitors will like.

Indrani Dhar of Recipe Junction –

A food blogger and homemaker, started loving this wonderful creative cooking style 15 years back while living in Germany. I am not any professional but a hobby baker, I love to bake for my kids, family and friends. I am also a part of this food blogger community, Kolkata Food Bloggers (KFB), which brought me in the limelight and I am happy to be a part of this wonderful initiative from KFB, where home bakers like me can showcase their creativity to a huge number of people.

Urmi Ghosh of Ume's Kitchen -

I was fascinated by cooking and baking since childhood and these became my passion after marriage. My blog full of baked items and people really appreciate my work, I run my small custom cake shop from home which includes whole varieties of birthday and wedding cakes, besides making cupcakes and chocolates. Kolkata Food Bloggers (KFB) has given me the platform to showcase my works and I am very proud to be part of the “Bake Sale 2014” organized by KFB and wish the great success of the event.

Manjari Chowdhury of For the Love of Food –

I guess the name 'For the Love of Food' is what defines my passion. The truth is baking is a passion interspersed with art. Knowing about the culinary secrets of different cultures is a passion which burns inside of me. It is this passion which encourages me to try out cakes and bakes from different cultures. For years my friends have tried to find ways so that I may express my passion to the world and through the platform that Kolkata Food Bloggers Bake Sale is providing, I shall express my passion for baking.

Anwesha Bhattacharya of Peanuts on the Road –

I am a weekend cook. During the week I have no access to a kitchen due to my field of work and when I come home during the weekends, all my culinary creative juices start flowing. My cooking and baking are influenced by my travels and I am always on the lookout for new ingredients and innovative flavour combinations.

KFB has been such a huge driving force behind the recipe posts on my blog - Peanuts on the Road. It is an incredibly vibrant, close knit community of food bloggers who inspire me to constantly improve upon my recipes, styling and photography.

Sayantani Mahapatra of A Home Maker's Diary –

Mom of a two hyper active kids, a true blue Bengali at heart, a self-employed designer who strives to strike a balance between her personal and professional life. I hold my family and memories close to her heart, find solace in cooking, baking and feeding with love. Organizing the Bake Sale along with Kamalika, Archita, Amrita and rest of the KFBians have been a pleasure.

Amrita Gill of Sweet'n'Savoury –

I have been fascinated with baking since my childhood and have cherished memories of me baking cakes along with my mother for family birthdays. Starting a blog was a natural transition where I started sharing my baking chronicles. KFB has been an amazing experience where I have got the opportunity to learn and grow from fellow food enthusiasts. Bake sale is a platform where as a baker I am getting a chance to showcase my passion.

Pritha Chakrabarty of Guilt-Free –

Pritha Chakrabarty of Guilt Free, a journalist by profession, a blogger and traveller by passion and a cook and hog by nature. My tryst with baking started way back with the pressure cooker and gradually got elevated to an oven. In days when we were kids, cakes were probably the ultimate “gift food”, stuff that we longingly expected when we had been good. My policy is to make this “goodness” a regular part of our lives. At the cost of sugar levels fluctuating, I still believe that nothing can beat a good, hearty cake when you are low. So I bake often. I bake when I have nothing to do. And I also bake when I have a lot to do. Baking is probably my punching bag, my side pillow that I embrace with fuzzy warmth after a long, hard day at work. I have been associated with Kolkata Food Bloggers for about 8 months now, and every single interaction with the fellow members have been so enriching and encouraging. It has been their love and constant appreciation that have egged me on to better myself as a cook as well as a baker (as if undying love for food wasn’t enough!) Not surprisingly, when they decided to organise the first Bake Sale of its kind in Kolkata, as a part of the group I jumped into the bandwagon.