This Woman Left Her Job As A Banker In Pune And Is Fulfilling Her Dream As A Baker In Patna

In this hustle bustle of life when aspirations are sky high and people are dropping everything else to achieve their professional goals, Reena had an altogether different story to tell. A management graduate from Pune University, a key account manager with topmost Fintech organization, a Sindhi by birth moves to Patna leaving her bright career and an upmarket lifestyle behind her. Women, as they say make sacrifices for their loved ones gets exemplified and incidentally she lands in Patna on International Women’s day to her Bihari in-laws.
“I belong to a Sindhi community, so everything here was new for me. Everything here was different from my place, but one change that I witnessed on daily pattern was the food. My husband is from Bihar, his family’s food pattern varied largely from ours. They preferred full meals and hence that made me spend a lot more time in kitchen and I started enjoying it,” says Reena.
Initially the break from work was enjoyable but her dream of starting something of her own kept knocking her thoughts and she started pondering over options available but nothing was shaping up. Eventually she realized that her all-time favorite hobby of baking can be evolved into a full time profession.
I was fond of baking, especially cakes since my college time and so was my elder sister. My sister is amazing at baking. I used to follow her directions and bake, said Reena.
Pune is a city where bakeries and their cakes are truly World class. Reena also did miss the flavor of her city in Patna. The cakes here, the baking style and flavours here did not suit her and she felt that something was missing.
“I used to be a critic for the quality and variation of cakes available here, and once my mother-in-law just said that since you make better than what is available then, why you don’t make my own cakes. That’s it and I started,” shared Reena.
Reena used to spend hours in the kitchen baking cakes, cookies, and brownies, some days it was a wow experience and then someday would it would be just ok, but then Reena continued striving towards being an awesome from just ok.
It was all a slow process. I used to make cakes for family and friends, then it gradually moved on to neighbors and then orders started pouring in through a word of mouth publicity, says Reena.

Reena shares a witty anecdote that she thinks is a trend in Bihar.
“When I used to ask my family here in Patna to review my bakery skills, most of the people used to react with “theek hai”, that’s it. So, just theek hai is something I was not ready for. Therefore, I started working towards being good, very good and then awesome. So, when I achieved that, I knew it was huge,” shared Reena.
With time she has become a seasoned baker and has won appreciation of all sorts. She was invited to put up her stall at Bihar Diwas where she displayed a 3 feet Harley Davidson cake made of fondant and her secret ingredients. She has chaired workshops organized by leading Hindi dailies to teach the nuances of baking and icing to ladies in Patna. Difference between cakes made by her vis a vis the ones being sold at local bakeries is the same between a normal tailor shop and a designer boutique. Her affair with baking which was simmering for long made her found a name for her venture—Cake affaire’
Her students ranges from young school kids to working women to housewives, staff from bakeries and even hotel management students. Her students comes from all over Bihar She creates unique couture cakes according to the needs and requirements of her clients and has trained many students in the field of cake decor and baking. Her passion for connecting with people and her love for cake art has helped her create a huge student clan. The best part of her baking journey is that she has just started. The cards she has in her sleeves will definitely bring Patna on the map of baking. City which has been famous for its sweets will soon be famous for Reena’s Designer cakes. Her uniqueness lies in the fact that she uses high quality ingredients with no compromise on hygiene and process. She is truly an artist, when she wears her baker hat because of her passion and devotion in decorating the cakes with sugar craft, fondant, and every time she ends up creating a masterpiece which is different from her previous cakes. Reena believes in making her own standards and raising the bar for her contemporaries. Reena picked up this from Big B’s dialogue “seekhna band to jeetna band”, and in her journey to become a master chef, she ensures that learning process never stops. Every
year she travels to attend workshop from international cake artists. She was also a lead in the team of cake artists which made supposedly world’s first moving cake. She has a series of wedding cakes, the ones that we see in Hollywood movies will be available here in Patna too, but mind you, there always will be a queue to get one.
“Initially, it was only bakery. But, now I also have my other activities like clay work involved. I prepare decorative items, like diya, and creative items made out of thrash and unused stuffs lying in our home. These stuffs are at times specialized for an individual or even made in bulk depending of the requirement” shared, Reena.
Reena’s home is full with creative item like a pen-stand made of an old keyword buttons. She also organizes an exhibition at her place from time to time displaying all her creative work.
Talking about her bakery skills, she is amazing at it. In her bakery classes, one can also learn sugar art, the art of making flower of sugar the ones used in cakes. There are different types of courses offered by her like Foundation, Intermediate, Advance, and each course covers different areas of cake baking. This makes the learning process more focused for her students.
Her bakery classes only takes places in winter and the booking for the same takes place in monsoon.
“It is difficult to store all the raw materials used in bakery classes in summer, hence I only take up classes in winter,” confirmed Reena.