SHE IS IN LOVE WITH YEAST, big time! And yeast loves her to submission. You get the picture..You give her a set of ingredients and she will transform it into a wonderful loaf. In all the 5 plus years she has been baking breads, there have been only a couple of occasions when she has bought bread from the store. Can you beat this??
She is an extremely efficient homemaker, mother of two little girls and an IT professional who works from home - out of her kitchen to be precise. Yes, she writes SQL programmes in her huge kitchen while her breads and cakes bake.
She has over 280 recipes in her more than a year old blog, recipes from breads to mousses, cakes, cookies, desserts, Indian recipes etc and a series on cake decorating as well. She is a certified Wilton cake decorator to boot!! She has a voracious appetite for baking and she has a whopping collection of over 100 cooking and baking books. Her passion for baking, breads in particular is very inspiring. So many people (me included) find working with yeast intimidating and Champa has inspired so many of us to strike up a camaraderie with the yeast beast, introducing us to the pleasure of baking gourmet bread at home.
She would, in her college days, travel in a bus instead of an auto, just so that she could eat the Aloo buns at the bakery. Hahaha, now isn't she is a true, true foodie? Her zest for baking is really commendable. Even when she was advised bed rest during her pregnancy and allowed to stand only for short periods of time at intervals, she has managed to bake bread!
I love her blog, Versatile Vegetarian Kitchen for all those wonderful breads she has out there, the accuracy of the recipes, the helpful tips and possible variations for the same she suggests. Though almost all her breads are bookmarked, some of my must tries are Aloo Buns, Fatless Banana Choco Chip Bread, Whole Wheat Orange Cranberry bread, Sweet Ricotta Loaf, Vegan Whole Wheat Bread, Cream Cheese Sweet bread.. the list goes on and on...I love her extremely versatile basic white bread recipe which you would have seen here.
This lady, with the golden touch for baking breads has been my source of inspiration for getting started and keeping me going with yeast , a new but a ooh.so..wonderful acquaintance. Thanks so much Champa, keep baking, keep inspiring !!
I know, you are off to her blog now, but do come back for a drool-worthy, inspiring recipe from the Bangalore Baker shortly.
