Chandigarh is seeing a huge crop of home bakers. So I thought of catching up with one.
The home baker in focus is Dr Asheena Batra of COCOMOM cakes.
For Dr Asheena Batra, an alumnus of College of Dental Sciences, Davangere, and dentist turned-baker, nothing satisfies her like doing things with her hands.
Also, she is a passionate Art of living teacher and a mother of two young ones.
This same passion made her chose dentistry as a course of study. Upon graduating, she worked for 10 years before she finally dropped the dental practice for cake-making.Like many people who have left the known for the unknown, tongues wagged when she decided to resign from a very prestigious profession. According to some, making cakes doesn’t require serious training, only psychomotor or manipulative skills.
However, Asheena powered on. She did it for two years on a part-time basis but she finally took it up on full-time two years ago. Today, she not only makes or sells cakes for people of power and influence or sells cake ingredients. Many seek her for knowledge and tutorials on cake making.
“Many people actually wondered why I wanted to leave dentistry for baking, but with time when they saw my passion for cake-making, they had no choice than to support me since they saw that I had a flair for it,” she said when answering question about people’s reaction when she was leaving dentistry for cake-making.
Yet, despite her wide fulfillment as a baker, she still harbours some love for her first profession, dentistry like a baby that cries to repossess what is taken from it. “I miss dentistry and I love it. Maybe sometime in future, I will look somewhere to do dentistry on t a part-time basis. I intend to go back, but not fully.”
Speaking further about her home, she explained that her business prevents the opportunity to still attend to her home. Hence she balances her home alongside her career effectively. “Some times, I bake from home and it makes it easier. Initially, I was at home, but now that I am outside the home it is a bit easier for me. I can be there for my family whenever I want. Sometimes when I really want to be at home I take time to stay and attend to, my family. I create time to go to my children’s school sometimes and to attend to other things.” she discloses.
For some cake-making is simply mixing white flour ingredients but for her it goes beyond that as expertise is essential in the craft. She further explains, “You need skills, innovation, awareness of new trends in the industry and some idea about market situation. I advise bakers that they must ensure that they use good ingredients. Put your own idea into it so that you can have unique cake. I have a line of cakes. We have some cakes made without white flour and we have the conventional cake that people like.”
You can check out her Facebook page here- fb.com/COCOMOM.cakes
