This Bengaluru boy ate 50 choux buns on a trip to Paris once, and he is now on The Great British Bake Off!

The new season of The Great British Bake Off  will see the 30-year-old recreating the Himalayas, using pistachio sponge and sugar paste
Antony Amourdoux on GBBO
Antony Amourdoux on GBBO

Thirty-year old Antony Amourdoux is a self-confessed ‘Bollywood baker’ and a true-blue Bengaluru boy, even though he was born in Pondicherry to Tamil parents.  With the widest smile you’ve ever seen, Antony grew up in India and learned to bake with his father, someone who remains an inspiration. After moving to UK in 2016 from Goldman Sachs Bengaluru, he will now be seen competing in Season 9 of the Britain’s largest baking competition, The Great British Bake Off.  If you scroll through this Instagram (antony_amourdoux), you’ll find delicious cakes, scones and pastries! However, this is not the first time the show will see Indians take part. Rav Bansal from Season 8 and Chetna Makhan, who proceeded to become a semi-finalist in 2014 are some of the Indian contestants on the show.  Antony, however takes his desserts very seriously. To a point where the baker actually went on a trip to Paris, and tasted 50 choux buns!   


 Dual flavours  
“As a little kid, I was in awe of my dad who made the best Christmas cakes and pizzas back home in India,” says Antony over a call from UK. “And fortunately, I have been surrounded by foodies who are always up for tasting all my concoctions!” Antony, who studied at St Joseph’s in Bengaluru, says that all of his friends and family are going to have the shock of their life. “They have known me to be a singer in a choir, a two-piece band, but never as a baker!” he says with a laugh. Ask him what his favourite food combinations are, and he says he loves sweet, but with a savoury twist. “I love a mango chilli jam, or a saffron Swiss meringue buttercream,” says Antony. 


Buttercream and butterflies  
The Great British Bake Off has always been known to give out-of-the-boxes challenges, like an illusion cake shaped like a handbag, for example. Bizarre, but it tests the contestants to their full potential. “If I had to do that, I would recreate the glorious Himalayan mountains with a light pistachio sponge, sugar paste and snow peaks in smooth silky Swiss meringue buttercream,” explains Antony with intense detailing, enough to make you hungry. 

With desserts requiring precision and dexterity, we wonder what kind of challenges Antony has had to face. “I do get wound up when trying to make breakfast pastries and laminated dough,” he says adding that they require lots of patience. For someone who has been watching the show for years, Antony still can’t believe that he’s made it to the show. “Never in a million years did I think I would be on Britain’s best TV show. I’ve got scared butterflies rumbling in my tummy now.”  

Quick bites with Antony
 
Least favourite ingredient to work with:
Ginger (not a big fan).

Desserts aside, I specialise in:
A wicked Chicken Chettinad 
and dosa.

Favourite Indian fusion dessert:
Most of my desserts are all Indian Fusion Dessert — saffron, chilli and cardamom are always my favourite add-ons. The most recent experiments include a 
classic frangipane with a coconut barfi topping, gajar ka halwa cupcakes, chilli jam, turmeric 
cookies, etc.
 
On my grocery list:
1) Chilli 
2) Coconut Milk/coconut in 
any form 
3) All spices (cardamom, fennel seeds etc).
 
The first dish I messed up: 
Rasam, which I started with clear instructions from the boss of the kitchen (mom). At the end of that teach-in session it tasted like water, and not rasam. I’m sure have come a long way from that. 

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