After teaching for about seventeen years, Surabhi finally heeded her inner call to pursue her passion for baking full-time. And ever since, she has been striving to create her own identity with her home-baked bakery items.

Surabhi Srivastava is a Home Baker by profession. She is the owner of The Absolute Bake.

Surabhi was born and brought up in Kanpur, UP. She completed her entire formal education in Kanpur itself.

Surabhi says that hailing from a family which always loved experimenting with cooking different dishes and trying different cuisines, it came naturally to her to take to cooking and baking.

Talking about her professional journey, Surabhi shares that she had also been interested in teaching. She started teaching primary school kids when she was in her bachelors. She continued teaching school students till she completed her masters. Later, she also taught MBA students.

After her wedding, Surabhi shifted to Raipur. And thereafter, she became more interested in baking. She took a few cooking classes that furthered her interest in cooking and honed her cooking skills. All this while she also continued teaching along with running her baking business. She took a conscious decision to pursue baking full-time when it became challenging for her to juggle teaching and baking.

Talking about challenges in her life, Surabhi says that life is full of challenges and an obstacle-free life is a fantasy. She says that it was tough for her to teach and pursue her higher education together. However, she says her parents and teachers always supported her. Later, when she moved to Raipur, she always doubted whether she would be successful in selling her bakery products as she was new in the city. However, her friends and colleagues always supported her, she says. Besides, starting her home baking business in her kitchen without a proper infrastructure entailed its own set of challenges for her.

Surabhi feels that she gave her one hundred percent to teaching and acquired diverse skills and teaching experience in a short span of time. And she has no regrets that she could have done something different and better.

Talking about COVID, Surabhi says that during the pandemic people became more cautious about hygiene and that’s why they preferred home-baked products. She says that during the pandemic, through word-of-mouth publicity, her bakery business expanded.

Surabhi has no Success Mantra as such. She believes in integrity and following consistent ethical practices be it in her life or bakery business.

When asked about her role models, Surabhi says she doesn’t consider any one person as her role model. She finds inspiration in and learns from everyone she meets and everything around her. Besides, she says that her attitude to keep learning is her biggest inspiration.

In her spare time, Surabhi likes to read, surf the internet and learn more about cooking.

Surabhi thinks that life is too short to not live the way you want to. She says that if you pursue your passion as your profession then you can do whatever you do by heart.

To the youth today, Surabhi advises them to never fear experimenting in life and following the path less traveled.