Indian cities hooked on to Texan cakes
Bengaluru: The Christmas and New Year celebrations in a few cities in India have gone international. Cakes and wine from the US, UK, and Swiss and Belgian chocolates have become hot favourites of many families in Indian cities like Bengaluru, Mangaluru in Karnataka, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, and other metros. International bakeries like Collin Street Bakery inTexasTexas are almost like the next town bakery for gourmets in India.
Christmas is extra special in many Mangaluru homes because the city is known as the “Rome of the East” and it is a time for all-out celebrations. The Christmas cake occupies the central space in every home, but at many homes, it is the cake from the Collin Street Bakery in Texas.
Why a cake has to travel around the globe to be placed on the table in Bengaluru? When asked, a serious gourmet Thomas Rodrigues who got a cake gifted by one of his relatives two years ago told Hans India: “I started telling about the quality of the cakes baked in Collin Street Bakery in Texas and many of them are hooked on to it” Thelma D’Silva in Mangaluru said, “If we wanted a cake for Christmas or the new year, we had to order it sometime in the second week of October, and every delivery is on time and in unbelievable packing. Their fruit cake is just out of this world.”
The portal of the Collin Street Bakery says the family business bakery started in 1896 and is situated just 50 kilometres from Dallas, Texas. One of the top bakeries in Bengaluru, the iconic Fathima Bakery which is where most of the Bangaloreans go for their Christmas cakes, is aware of the quality of European and US-baked Christmas cake. The quality comes from the ingredients, mainly the dough and the fruits and the good practices of baking, maybe in times to come at least some of the bakeries will be able to scale up the quality to international levels.
The Karachi Bakery in Hyderabad, Monginis in Goa, Nilgiris in Bengaluru, Spencers in Chennai, and Cochin Bakery in Kerala have made great advances in the art of baking Christmas and New Year cakes and have developed an all-India presence.