Bengaluru, KARNATAKA :

Nineteen-year-olds, Sana Azam and Rhea Agarwal balance studies and their baking business

Running a baking business when you are a full-time student is not a piece of cake. However, Sana Azam and Rhea Agarwal, both 19, prove all you need is passion to batter-up and bake away.

The decision to start a baking venture happened organically for Sana, founder and baker at Pink Whisk. Having grown up in an environment where the oven was always in use — whether it was her grandmother making the more traditional Muslim recipes and bakes such as roat or her mother making a cake. It was from there that Sana developed a love for cooking. “I’d always been a sous chef,” she says laughing. “My earliest memories go back to holding the mixer while my mother handled everything else.” That gradually changed, as she began doing things independently and grew as a baker herself. Although she had received requests in the past from close friends and family, the decision to start Pink Whisk only happened towards the end of her 12th standard in school.

Sana, a first-year B.Com student at Mount Carmel College, has a Pink Whisk stall at MCC’s many fests. She is working on a launching a Facebook page soon but currently takes orders by phone or WhatsApp. Pink Whisk also has a WhatsApp group which keeps people updated about what is cooking.

Although she specialises in all things sweet, Sana also dabbles with savouries like chicken quiches, tarts, samosas, pastas and bakes. Apart from cakes and cupcakes, she also makes éclairs, cheesecakes, bars (something between a cookie and a cake), chiffon pies, and trifles. Pink Whisk’s white chocolate and raspberry and strawberry jam bars are extremely popular, mini cheesecakes accompanied by a berry compote and the signature Banoffee are favourites as well. Sana said her most challenging order was “baking a five-kilo cake for a software company. Any order placed less than two days before it is needed is always challenging.”

Chance encounter

Rhea Agarwal, on the other hand, found her love for baking by chance. The 19 year old, first year BBA student at Christ University started It’s Whipped, with her sister Sakshi Agarwal. Rhea says: “I was maybe 12 or 13 when my mother enrolled me in a summer baking class.” And there was no looking back. Within a week, she had practiced everything she had learned. Whether it was a family function or a friend’s birthday, “Nobody asked me but I took it upon myself to make something for every occasion, I just got good with practice,” she says. Friends and family always suggested she start taking it more seriously and turn it into a business but it was only when a close relative placed an order for a chocolate cake and offered to pay her for it, that the idea to turn the hobby into a business venture arose.

Rhea runs It’s Whipped with the help of her mother and sister. They have a Facebook page and an Instagram account where they communicate with potential customers by posting pictures of desserts they make as well as inform their customers of new items they add to their ever-growing menu.

“We make everything from chocolates, cakes, cupcakes and pies to granola bars, cookies and herb crackers. We also have a list of egg-less recipes. Our teacakes are popular and we offer them in many flavours including lemon, walnut, chocolate chip, honey and date.”

Talking of her most challenging order yet, Rhea says, “It was an order for 600 chocolate-covered brownie bites that a corporate had requested for Diwali.”

Both It’s Whipped and Pink Whisk operate out of homes and they prefer when customers come to pick up their orders.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style> Food / by Harshala Reddy / April 05th, 2017