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The upcoming episode of the cooking-based reality show '<keyword id="448395" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="MasterChef-India" source="Orion">MasterChef India</keyword>' features a unique blend of flavours. During the course of the episode, contestant Kriti Dhiman, a 23-year-old home baker from Gobindgarh, Punjab, steals the spotlight with her '<keyword id="19276646" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="black-garlic-ice-cream" source="Orion">black garlic ice cream</keyword>.' Kriti chooses her favourite ingredient - dates, and makes it the base for a delectable date pudding. However, the judges throw a curveball at her by asking her to choose one out of three secret ingredients presented by them. She picks black garlic, and transforms her choice into a velvety black garlic ice cream, which leaves all three judges in absolute awe of her culinary brilliance. Chef <keyword id="973254" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="ranveer-brar" source="Orion">Ranveer Brar</keyword>, who serves in the judges panel, heaps praise on Kriti's dish. With a resounding bang of his signature spatula, he says: "Swaad Aa Gaya." He goes on to say: "Kriti's creation transcends the ordinary. It's a symphony of flavours that are a pure delight to the taste buds. Her choice to incorporate black garlic into her ice cream is nothing short of mind-blowing. It takes courage to experiment with flavours at this level, and her risk has paid off in the most delicious way possible. This is the kind of innovation that sets MasterChef India's contestants apart." With <keyword id="19276645" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="chefs-vikas-khanna" source="Orion">Chefs Vikas Khanna</keyword>, Ranveer Brar, and <keyword id="334991" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="pooja-dhingra" source="Orion">Pooja Dhingra</keyword> at the helm, this digital-exclusive season of the cooking based reality show boasts a gastronomic extravaganza. 'MasterChef India' streams on Sony LIV.

The dish that impressed Chef Ranveer Brar is black garlic ice-cream

<ul><li>Due to the ongoing pandemic, many businesses have suffered. A few have perished in the process and a number of others managed to thrive.</li><li>Today on The Influencer Adda, we are talking to content creator, entrepreneur and chef Pooja Dhingra to discuss the impact of the pandemic, how a business can sustain through these challenges and a few trends to watch out for.</li></ul>Content creator, entrepreneur and chef Pooja Dhingra has 7.2 million followers on Instagram and 18.6k subscribers on YouTube. At 18, Dhingra quit her career in law to pursue her passion as a pastry chef. She started baking with her aunt when she was six. As an enthusiastic kid, she would watch her aunt at work in the kitchen, who taught her how to bake brownies and her love for baking only grew stronger with time. Weekends were reserved for creating flavour combinations and food experimentation. It was during her first visit to Paris that she fell in love with macarons. In 2010 began the biggest love affair of her life with macarons at Le15 Patisserie. Today, she has been renowned as the ‘macaron queen of India.’ However, there was a small villain in this food affair. After COVID-19 hit India last year, Dhingra had to make the toughest business decisions of her life, which included shutting down her beloved Le15 Cafe in Colaba, Mumbai, which was her first cafe. <div type="Video" msid="85774367" hostid="261" title="Content creator and Chef Pooja Dhingra on sustaining a business through tough economical conditions" dataSource="BUSINESSINSIDER" thumbUrl="https://denmark.timesinternet.in/cmslite/api/app/images.jpg?msid=85774367"></div> In her recently published cookbook, Coming Home, she writes, “I remember feeling isolated and feeling like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I had a spot in my room where I'd sit on my couch every night with Excel sheets open on the computer. Most nights I cried myself to sleep. It was never about what would people say, it was never about being ashamed or embarrassed by failure. It was more the crushing of a childhood dream. I went into hospitality because I wanted to someday run a cafe. Finding space for Lel5 cafe in Colaba was a miracle in my eyes. It felt like the whole universe truly conspired to make it happen. Was running the cafe easy? Not one bit. Was it fulfilling? A 100 percent.” However, she was quick to pick up the pieces and find another way to keep her business up and running, which was through e-commerce platform Shopify. She has been working on expanding her digital footprint in the country through Shopify and figuring out how to ship her highly precious and perishable goodies across India. Sharing how Le15 revamped their business after COVID, Pooja says, “COVID took us by surprise because for the first time, money stopped coming in completely. In the hospitality industry, you are used to constant cash flow because customers come in and that stopped. For the past 3 years, we’ve been working on packaged Le15 goods. I used to keep getting comments on my Instagram saying that we want Le15 in Pune or Varanasi and I would just always laugh it off. I would be grateful for it but I never actually thought about how I can leverage this business model. And then a crisis comes in, we had to then concentrate on the parts of business that were viable and think about ways we can leverage our brand presence. So, we changed our business model. We set up our Shopify page, which ensured that all my products were online. I still remember the first day we went live. We set a goal saying that we would hit a 100 and within 36 hours, we sold over 1000 of our hot chocolate goodies just by making our presence on Shopify. I could see analytics, where people were ordering it from and how many pieces were they ordering, etc and that just made me look at my business differently. So, we found an opportunity in this crisis and that’s what we have been doing.” By focusing on quality, Pooja built her business on the back of strong word of mouth, improved her aesthetics on social media and eventually expanded her reach. During COVID, her wide social media reach came in handy. She made sure she kept it authentic and she communicated with her audience during her highs and lows. Telling us what worked on social media for Pooja as a content creator, she shares, “Very early on in my career I realised the power of social media and word of mouth. I had no budget for a marketing team when I started out. So, I used to click pictures of my cake and upload it on Facebook. I realised that you can reach a whole audience just with your own creativity. That’s how it started. I remember my friend showing me sepia-tinted pictures on Instagram and I just took to it. I realised that it is a great platform for storytelling and I simply told my story through it. So whether I was struggling with my business or making something delicious -- the highs and lows -- I documented it all through the process. Somewhere, people really connected and making delicious stuff helps! As I grow as a person, the message has changed but the essence remains the same, which is to connect with people.” <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Working in a highly male-dominated industry" text="Working in a highly male-dominated industry">Working in a highly male-dominated industry</cmsannotation> Pooja started her entrepreneurial journey when she was 23 in a highly-male dominated industry. Even today, women chefs only make about 3% of the workforce in India. On challenges she encountered, she shares, “A decade ago, when I went to a culinary school, we didn’t have a lot of female chefs that I could look up to and say, ‘I wanna be like her.’ I was the only Indian student in my class. But it is changing today. It is slow but it is happening. Last year, when I went back to my school in Paris, I was delighted to see that the class was full of Indian students and a lot of them were women. So, change is happening. As more women get into the field, more doors are opening.” Now at Le15, Pooja is trying to build an inclusive workplace by making sure her employees get the opportunities she missed out on. “When I was working in other kitchens, I observed a few differences and I made a note to myself that this will not happen when I open my own organisation. I am building on that now,” adds Pooja. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Tips for beginners" text="Tips for beginners">Tips for beginners</cmsannotation> In 2019, India had over 1,200 channels with one million <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/media/entertainment/youtube-in-india-has-over-265-mn-monthly-active-users-1200-channels-with-1-mn-subs/articleshow/72456212.cms?from=mdr">YouTube </a>subscribers. At that time, two creators on an average were crossing one-million subscribers and 2,500 creators were touching their first 1,000 subscriber milestone every day. Due to the lockdown, many Indians have turned to content for entertainment, which has led to exponential growth of content creators as well. And this number is only going up by 2025 as the number of internet users is expected to grow to more than 974 million, says data platform Statista. While becoming an influencer seems glamorous, it takes a lot of time, requires patience and hardwork before you actually get to start monetising your content. So, Pooja’s advice to young creators is to keep it authentic. “If you are starting your own journey right now, I think it is a very exciting time. I think it is important to find what you love and what you are really good at. So, find your niche, identify what are the few buckets of things that you enjoy doing or are an expert at. Be as authentic, real as you can. Tell your story in the best way possible. I think people connect with real stories. If you manage to do that, whichever medium, I think that will be a success.”

Content creator and Chef Pooja Dhingra on sustaining a business through tough economical conditions by leveraging the power of social media

Content creator and Chef Pooja Dhingra on sustaining a business through tough economical conditions

<ul><li>The celebrity judges of <keyword id="835074" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Masterchef-Australia">Masterchef Australia</keyword> <keyword id="738807" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Matt-Preston">Matt Preston</keyword>, <keyword id="1426431" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Gary-Mehigan">Gary Mehigan</keyword> and <keyword id="1426432" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="George-Calombaris">George Calombaris</keyword> are leaving the show. </li><li>The judges are leaving after being on the show for 11 seasons. </li><li>The move comes in after Calombaris was accused and fined for underpaying his staff by $8 million.</li></ul>Arguably, the world’s most popular cooking reality show Masterchef Australia has bid adieu to its celebrity judges Matt Preston, Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris. The show has gained immense popularity in India, that an Indian version was created called Masterchef India. The judges who are celebrity chefs themselves, had become synonymous with the show, which had a dream run for 11 seasons. They not only assess the contestants and the quality of their food, but also entertain the audience with quirky comments. More importantly, they introduce the audience to the finer points of gourmet food, an aspect which found a sweet spot with its Indian fanbase. On an instagram post, Masterchef Australia wrote, “After 11 sensational seasons, we bid a fond farewell to our judges - Matt Preston, Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris. For more than a decade, #MasterChefAU has celebrated Australian food and made the culinary dreams of everyday home cooks come true. We thank Matt, George and Gary for being a part of this remarkable MasterChef legacy!” This move comes after a scandal hit one of the judges, <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/food-wine/masterchef-australia-judge-george-calombaris-underpayment-scandal-8-million-controversy-5841690/">George Calombaris</a>. He was fined for allegedly underpaying his employees by almost $8 million. The judges have also often travelled to India for collaboration, given their popularity with the Indian audience. Many Indian origin chefs have made their way to the Australian show as well. Gary Mehigan, yet another judge from the show, has travelled to India, and also did shows with Pooja Dhingra, the owner of Le15 cafe. Mehigan also has a partnership with Indian e-commerce startup Nicobar for their cookware line.

Masterchef Australia bids adieu to its famous trio of judges – Matt, Gary and George

In the inaugural list of top "promising young leaders and game changers" under the age of 30 in Asia from the prestigious <keyword id="6373044" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Forbes">Forbes</keyword> magazine, <keyword id="487" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Sania-Mirza">Sania Mirza</keyword>, <keyword id="6354486" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Virat-Kohli">Virat Kohli</keyword> and <keyword id="30618" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Saina-Nehwal">Saina Nehwal</keyword> are leading the pack of over 50 Indians. 
 
The Forbes '30 under 30 Asia' list includes 300 "young and driven entrepreneurs and game-changers" from countries including India, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Pakistan, Vietnam and Australia who are contributing to their industries in a significant way. 
 In this list, one would find 56 Indians, with Kohli, Mirza and Nehwal along with 26-year old Bollywood actress <keyword id="89958" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Shraddha-Kapoor">Shraddha Kapoor</keyword>. 
 
"At the top of India's crickculture is batting prince Kohli, who led India to clean sweep in their Twenty 20 series against Australia in January," Forbes said of Kohli. He was also named among India's highest earning celebrities in 2015, standing at USD 11.3 million. 
 
Talking of Mirza, Forbes said that she has been the "most successful female Indian tennis player ever" and one of the highest paid and highest profile athletes in the country. 
 
About Nehwal, Forbes described her as a "role model" and "Indian badminton queen". 
 
The list has a total of 10 categories, covering consumer technology, enterprise technology, arts, healthcare and science, media, social 
entrepreneurship, finance, industry and retail. 
 
Arunima Sinha, the first female and first Indian amputee to climb Mt Everest in 2013 and Chaitanya Tamhane, the writer and director of the critically acclaimed movie 'Court' also found place in the entertainment and sports category. 
 
Raghav Verma, the co-founder of Indian tea chain 'Chaayos', Mehul Agrawal, the cofounder of automotive e-commerce site 'Cars24' and online furniture store 'FabFurnish', Kanika Tekriwal, the cofounder of 'JetSetGo', Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of 'OYO Rooms', Ankit Bhati, cofounder and CTO of 'Olacabs', Pooja Dhingra, owner and executive chef of 'Le15 Patisserie', photographer Vicky Roy, Advait and Akshat Gupt, cofounders of 'Supari Studios', Sattvik Mishra, CEO of 'ScoopWhoop Media', Manju Bhatia, joint Managing Director of 'Vasuli Recovery', Anshulika Dubey, cofounder and COO of 'Wishberry.in', Paras Chopra, founder and CEO of software company 'Wingify', Dinesh Goel, founder and CEO of 'AasaanJobs', Faith Gonsalves, founder of 'Integrated Development Education Association', Smriti Nagpal, the founder and CEO of 'Atulyakala', Chinmay Malaviya, cofounder and vice president of 'Foodpanda', Arun Chandru, cofounder and MD of 'Pandorum Technologies', Neha Sinha, cofounder and CEO of 'Epoch Elder Care' are the other names in the list. 
 
<a href="http://images.teamtalk.com/09/03/800x600/Sania-Mirza-Indian-Wells-2009_1997550.jpg">Image source</a>`

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The dish that impressed Chef Ranveer Brar is black garlic ice-cream

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Content creator and Chef Pooja Dhingra on sustaining a business through tough economical conditions by leveraging the power of social media

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Content creator and Chef Pooja Dhingra on sustaining a business through tough economical conditions

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Masterchef Australia bids adieu to its famous trio of judges – Matt, Gary and George

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Sania Mirza, Virat Kohli and Saina Nehwal amongst 56 Indians in Forbes' Asia list

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