A Different World!
As mentioned in our previous post, we attended the Bakery Business 2022 (BB22) trade fair, exhibition and convention at the Jio World Convention Centre. Our academy was having booth here and there were also a couple of interesting Masterclasses being conducted by the School of European Pastry (https://sep.in.net/).
The Jio World Convention Centre at the Bandra Kurla Complex was like stepping into another world and we had to remind ourselves that this was also India-it was such a contrast to the hustle and bustle of the Bandra area where we were staying! The Bandra Kurla Complex is a business and residential district in the city of Mumbai, India. It is a prominent upscale commercial hub which commands some of the highest property rates in the country.
Anyway, back to BB22.
Our first masterclass was with Nitin Tandon, a prominent chef, food stylist and branding design consultant in Mumbai.
This was an enjoyable and succint masterclass on Social Media and Food Photography. We even managed a photo with Nitin and his insta is now following us!
The Second Masterclass was Art of Chocolate in Indian Delicacy by another interesting chef. An interesting point was that the session was conducted by DP Chocolates who are one of India’s leading chocolate manufacturers. A fun entrepreneurial fact-the company was started by its owner at the age of 55 and 20 years later the company is thriving and making amazing chocolate accessible to Indians! We tasted it and it was yummy:)
The dessert they were showing was a fig, date and chocolate in a cashew marzipan coating. It was a fun session and we learnt more about how chocolates are being used in Indian desserts and it was being more widely adapted.
I do have my reservations on this as I feel Chocolate is such a dominant taste and in Indian desserts, it tends to overpower every other taste. I feel one loses the diversity of taste that the Indian dessert imparts from its nut based and dairy based ingredients merged with spices like cardamom and saffron. Adding choclate to the mix I feel just obliterates every other taste. Perhaps white chocolate with its more subtle notes may have a place but personally I am not a fan of Indian desserts with chocolate. Maybe I need to taste more to see.
The BB22 was such a paraside for bakery businesses-big or small. From cake decorating items to food additives to large machinery to ingredients-you name it, it had it! Lots of samples to be had too! And local Mumbai street food for sale too!
We also met up with the Palate Academy Principal, Rakhee Vaswani and took some photos there as well as tasted some yummy offerings they were making!
The star in terms of taste for me at the BB22 was a Financier with a white chocolate mousse and blueberry b Veliche chocolates. It was heaven on earth!
The important thing was that the BB22 was such an eye opener for me in terms of how wide and big the industry was and the many possibilities that it offers for a home baker. Quite the experience:)