Adventures in Flavour
The clue to flavour that lies behind the name Elaichi Patisserie is in its name. Elaichi is the Hindi word for cardamom and it was a friend who initially encouraged Vinaya Waghmode to explore Indian flavours in her classic French pastries. Through Elaichi’s menu, Waghmode reveals the history of her own life and cultural influences.
Flavour inspiration
Take, for instance, the cheese and chutney puff, comprising flaky layers of puff pastry, cheese and Waghmode’s own homemade cilantro and mint chutney. It was inspired by a particularly tasty cheese and chutney street-food sandwich she used to eat on the way home, as a college student in Mumbai.
Likewise the masala brioche, a swirled brioche roll stuffed with a savoury filling of peppers, carrots, tomatoes, cabbage, onions, mint and cilantro and masala spice. It was borne of a craving Waghmode experienced while pregnant with her daughter.
Waghmode developed the baba gulab jamun after trying a classic baba savarin while in France and noticing the similarities to gulab jamun, a classic Indian dessert. She took the cardamom flavour from the gulab jamun that she remembered her mother would make, and she created a light syrup (gulab jamun syrup is typically sweeter and heavier) to soak a baba dough. After trying her idea on friends at dinner, she knew she had something that would work.
And, she says, while people may at first be surprised to find her flavours in a French pastry, her regulars come back because “people just love those flavours. That’s the most important thing.”
Passion for pastry
In 2019, Waghmode was living in Mumbai working a corporate job in marketing. She became more interested in food, she says, “after she married,” and had begun taking pastry workshops in India and dreaming of building her own business. She and her husband had always planned to come to Canada and for her to switch careers, but she knew that she needed to get further training. So with her husband’s support, she went to France to study further, enrolling at École National Supérieure de Pâtisserie in Yssingeaux, a small town in Haute-Loire.
“Going to France was so scary for me,” says Waghmode, acknowledging the initial trepidation about leaving her secure corporate job in India. But once in France, she never looked back and kept moving forward with her plans. This despite finding herself there just as COVID hit and being “stuck there” while her husband was still in India. In reality, she looks back with fondness on her four months in France, which became a catalyst for her career transition, giving her the opportunity to crystallize her ideas and develop her skills.
Coming to Canada
Waghmode arrived in Canada at the end of August in 2020 just as things were beginning to open up again after COVID, but amid lots of restrictions and an uncertain economic climate. She passed her time in the required quarantine for entrants to Canada, applying for jobs in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. She started discussions with a bakery in Toronto, and she looked forward to being there as it was a city where she had friends. But an offer from Vancouver’s Fôret Noire came first, and so she packed just two suitcases and moved to Vancouver, knowing her husband would follow in due course. Was she daunted about moving to a place she had never been, where she knew no one? She explains, “I was not thinking so much. I needed a job.”
Her husband followed her in December 2020 and found a job himself, and by January 2021, with her doing well at her job, life started to settle down. Happy news followed in late 2022 with the birth of their daughter, but she had suffered a difficult first trimester of pregnancy and had left Fôret Noire during that time. Once her baby was born, she began thinking seriously about starting a business of her own.
Getting started
“I cannot tell my story without talking about Flavours of Hope,” Waghmode says. She received assistance in the early days of her business from the Vancouver social enterprise that supports newcomer women to build connections and build food entrepreneurships from which they can gain income.
“To use technical words, it’s a program, but I feel like for us it is very much a family,” she says.
Waghmode describes the experience of working with Flavours of Hope as “very open, a two-way street” and is grateful for the ongoing support it provided. She started in June 2023 with a small grant to get going and the mentorship the program provided, and by September of that year she was out working on her own, having secured a place in Coho Commissary. She feels a similar sense of support and camaraderie and inspiration working in the commissary.
“Everyone comes with so much experience and they are always eager to help each other. I see them hustling. And it’s so inspiring,” she says.
Heart of her community
Vancouver Farmers Markets hold a special place in the evolution of Elaichi Patisserie business, but also in Waghmode’s heart. She explains, “I loved the vibe.” In the early days of her time in Vancouver, she and her husband, local-food enthusiasts, spent a lot of time going to markets, particularly during the period of COVID restrictions when farmers’ markets were one of the few places offering social connection. For Waghmode, this was particularly poignant. “It was the only place we felt we belonged because we could talk to the vendors. They were there when I didn’t have any friends or family here.”
Today, Waghmode appreciates the opportunity to connect with other vendors and trade ideas and to buy local ingredients such as the strawberries she buys from Maan Farms, which she uses in her pastries.
“It almost feels like a co-working place,” she says.
Now as a vendor, the farmers’ markets are where regulars line up to her unique pastries like pear and chai masala cinnamon roll and take-home desserts such as pistachio saffron cake and a particularly refreshing rice and mango pudding. And while not every day is easy, and a difficult market day can make her question everything, one good market day, she says, puts her “on the moon.”
Waghmode’s mind is brimming with new ideas for pastries including a line of croissants and her version of a black forest cake. She sees a bricks-and-mortar location in her eventual plans. This would allow her to offer more products including entremets, a French-style mousse cake that she enjoys making and that provides many opportunities for interesting flavour combinations.
As for the future, she remains undaunted saying, “It’s scary… But once you set out on your first adventure, it kind of steamrolls. You want more of that.”
Elaichi Patisserie
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