India Untold: How a Kerala Baker Baked India’s First Christmas Cake in 1884

This festive season, read the fascinating story of how India's first Christmas cake was made by an enterprising Kerala baker way back in the 1883.

From Pondicherry’s Vivikam and Goa’s rose-infused Baath to Allahabad’s spice-laden festive loaves, Christmas cakes are more than just desserts in Indian homes. Their charm lies not merely in flavour, but in the layered histories baked into every slice.

Yet, only a few are aware that India’s first Christmas cake was born over 140 years ago, in a quiet coastal town of north Kerala. The story begins in the early 1880s in Thalassery, where Mambally Bapu, an enterprising businessman supplying milk, tea and bread to British troops in Egypt, decided to set up his own borma, a bakery.

Fresh from Burma, where he had perfected the art of biscuit-making, Bapu returned to introduce baked goods to Malayali households. At the time, India had just one other bakery, catering exclusively to British tastes. Undeterred, Bapu opened the Royal Biscuit Factory.

Soon, his ovens were turning out nearly 40 varieties of biscuits, rusks, breads and buns. In an age before commercial yeast became commonplace, Bapu relied on local toddy to ferment his dough, a distinctly indigenous twist that defined his creations until British-imported yeast entered the market.

The turning point arrived a few days before Christmas in 1883, when Murdoch Brown, a British planter who had established a cinnamon plantation in nearby Anjarakkandy, walked into the bakery carrying a rich plum cake from England. Curious and hopeful, Brown asked Bapu to taste it, asking could he recreate it?

The seasoned baker agreed.

Brown offered a brief 10-minute lesson on cake-baking basics before handing over ingredients - cocoa, dates, raisins and other dried fruits along with a recommendation to use French brandy sourced from erstwhile Mayyazhi, now Mahe.

Bapu commissioned a custom mould from a blacksmith in Dharmadam, handpicked aromatic spices from Malabar’s fertile farms, and infused the recipe with local character by using a home-brewed liquor made from cashew apple and kadalipazham, a native banana variety.

On December 20, 1884, Bapu presented his creation to Brown. One bite was enough. The impressed planter famously declared it as "one of the best cakes he had ever had" and promptly ordered a dozen more.

The Christmas cake became a sensation among locals, and Bapu’s bakery flourished. In the decades that followed, his descendants carried forward the legacy, founding iconic bakery chains across Kerala and beyond.

More than a century later, Thalassery continues to reign as a trendsetter in India’s cake culture. Each December, expatriates from the US and UAE place massive orders for its famed Christmas cakes, prompting many bakeries to halt all other baking even birthday cakes for the entire month.

The Mambally family’s bakery empire still delights Malayali palates, with celebrated names such as KR Bakes in Ernakulam, Cochin Bakery in Kochi, Shantha Bakery in Thiruvananthapuram, Modern Bakery in Kozhikode, Tops Bakery in Nagercoil and Best Bakery in Kottayam.

So deeply ingrained is bakery culture in Kerala that nearly every panchayat boasts 25 to 40 bakeries.

At Best Bakery, paintings immortalise the moment Bapu handed over the historic cake to Brown. Cochin Bakery, too, boasts royal patronage — legend has it that the Maharajah of Cochin sent his car daily to fetch baked treats along with the morning newspaper.

Another cherished family tale recalls how Field Marshal KM Cariappa encountered Mambally biscuits while serving in Egypt during World War II. So taken was he by their taste that upon returning to Coorg, he arranged for supplies to be specially sent from the bakery.

(This article has been curated with the help of AI)