Ms Avanti Mathur – Pastry Chef

Born and raised in Jaipur, India, Avanti Mathur is a trained pastry chef from the world renowned Culinary Institute of America, New York.

Ms Mathur had a passion for baking since she was a child and grew up watching food being an integral part of her family culture. Growing up, she went into a career in software engineering working on analysis, design, quality assurance and testing, concepts which she applies to her baking even today. Throughout those years, she continued to bake for her ever-willing friends and family. Changing careers, she decided to pursue her lifelong dream to be a pastry chef and enrolled at the Baking and Pastry program at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, New York, where she graduated in 2007, at the top of her class sweeping all the awards of her class.

 While at school, Ms Mathur worked with Certified Master Chefs and Bakers and worked at St. Andrews Café and the Apple Pie Bakery & Café, award-winning restaurants at the CIA. She completed her internship at the Four Seasons Hotel & Resort, Dallas. Upon graduation, Ms Mathur worked at the widely acclaimed TRU Restaurant in Chicago. She was also the Consultant Pastry Chef at Vermilion, an award winning restaurant where she created an innovative and contemporary blend of flavors for their dessert menu desserts ranging from “Chana-chor Garam Brittle” to “Betel leaf-Mora Berry Mousse” to “Burnt Orange Phirni”.

Since moving to India, she has set up her own professional bakeshop, Sweet Nothings by Avanti Mathur, whipping up custom made treats designed in consultation with her customers for corporate events to destination weddings. Happy to be living her dream, her guiding force stays that mediocrity is not an option. She was also recently invited to create a food installation along with 8 other leading Indian chefs as part of a fundraiser for a non profit she supports for creating job opportunities for rescued children and their integration into mainstream jobs through mentoring programs.

As part of her learning at the culinary school, Ms Mathur has been trained in gluten free baking from the masterchefs in the field. Though she is not yet making gluten free goodies at a commercial level, she has generously assented to being our advisor for helping us create gluten free recipes for the masses.

We shall soon start a monthly column by her with information and tips for gluten free baking.