Around late November an unusual kind of pilgrim starts to
take the Prayag Raj from Delhi to Allahabad: the devout worshipper of
the Allahabadi Christmas cake. This is no elegant western pudding - it
is redolent with desi ghee, petha, ginger, nutmeg, javitri, saunf,
cinammon, something called cake ka jeera and marmalades from Loknath ki
Galli. All this is browned to perfection at a bakery that has acquired
cult status - Bushy's on Kanpur Road.
The ancient city has had a
great baking tradition. It could be because Allahabad had - and still
has - a sizeable population of Christians. At one time, it was the
preferred enclave of Anglo Indians, and it boasted many excellent
schools and colleges with hungry boarders who needed a steady supply of
bread, cupcakes, biscuits and cakes. If you talk to old-timers there
were three giants in the baking business around four decades ago -
Mallu, Mathu and Bushy's (the baker's name was Haji Mohammad
Zubrati but he had a bushy beard and the name Bushy's stuck).
The
others packed up but Bushy's survived and is now the must-do cake
destination for Allahabad Christians across India and the world. Whether
you live in Delhi or Lucknow or Varanasi, and even if you have migrated
to Dubai, Bahrain and the US, when you come home for Christmas the
feast is not complete without the rich brown Christmas cake from
Bushy's.
The interesting thing is the
Allahabad Christmas cake
is only baked at Bushy's. Customers get their own ingredients to the
bakery and watch like hawks while the batter is manually whisked and
popped into the oven for its mandatory two hours of baking.
Asha and
Sushil Browne have for the last two decades been going back to
Allahabad, their home town, from Delhi to get their Christmas cake done.
Around the last week of November, they get started on the long,
painstaking and lovingly put together cake-making process. First step is
booking your date with Bushy's. He bakes anywhere up to 2, 000 cakes in
the season and if you don't have an appointment you may have to wait in
a queue, or worse, wait overnight at the bakery.
"I remember
once waiting overnight for my turn, " recalls Sushil Browne. Families,
in fact, land up with tiffin boxes and snacks to wait for their turn and
a lot of time is spent gossiping about church politics and neighbours.
There is the air of a picnic around the shop.
But before all
that, there is the ritual putting together of ingredients. You have to
go to Loknath ki Galli known for its murabbas and preserved fruits to
buy the citrus peels and marmalades that enrich the cake. Almonds,
cashews and raisins could come from Khari Baoli in Delhi or abroad.
These have to be sliced and soaked in buckets of rum or brandy for at
least a week. The desi ghee - not butter, and certainly not yellow
butter because it is runny - is often made at home. The last two factors
ensure that the cake lasts for a year, and that too unrefrigerated.
If
you ask a non-resident Bushy loyalist from Allahabad why they take the
pains and not settle for a neighbourhood bakery, you are likely to hear a
horrified gasp.
"But he is the expert. If you invest so much in
your Christmas cake you can't take the chance of going to some random
baker, " says Asha Browne. The family gets anywhere between 60 and 70
cakes baked every Christmas (one kilo each of flour and sugar gets you
around 12 cakes). It might sound like a lot but remember the tradition
of Christmas demands sharing of cake among families and friends.
The
Eusedius family of Delhi is lucky because it still has a strong
Allahabad presence. Lalita, the matriarch of the family which is said to
be the oldest Christian clan in Allahabad, and one of the siblings,
Neelam, still live there and can muster cakes for the whole extended
family. Up until recently Lalita would preside over the mixing and
baking at Bushy's, this year Neelam had to take charge. "I am getting
anxious calls from my brother and nieces: 'Are you sure you will manage
it like mum? Why can't she go with you? Will it taste as good?'" she
says with a guffaw.
No two cakes popping out of the Bushy oven
taste the same - the ingredients, the proportions, the pre-baking
processes are customised to a family's needs, palate and affluence. The
Brownes for instance, use minced cashewnuts, the Eusediuses, are
particular about using home-made desi ghee while the Rudras insert a
wrapped coin into the batter as a special treat. While Bushy's skills
with the whisk and the heat of the oven are important factors, the hand
behind the dabba of ingredients taken to the bakery is even more so.
But
there is no underestimating Bushy's skills. Run by the son of the
family Aslam, it sticks to tradition. For one, the bakery has stuck to
hand mixing in an age when even small home cakes are machine whisked.
This, says Aslam, is the secret of their success. His boys take up to 45
minutes to whisk each cake. Remember that in homes, the whisking bowl
is usually passed around to give aching biceps and elbows a break.
"This manual mixing makes all the difference. And my employees are so good at it they can manage it really fast, " says Aslam.
Baking
among Allahabad Christians is a time for fun and bonding. Anuvinda
Varkey recalls sitting around the table with her siblings and cousins,
slicing fruits for the cake under her grandmother's supervision. "We had
to sing as we sliced so that she would know who was eating the fruits
on the sly, " she recalls. "But we loved it all because we got to lick
off the leftover batter. Actually, the baker was very meticulous, he
would wipe the whisking bowl clean but my granny would make him smear
some batter back on for us to lick. "
Don't conjure up visions
of a frilly, pretty confection - this is a rectangular block with butter
paper wrapped around it and the number stamped on it but bite into it
and it is like a world of flavours melting gently onto your tongue.
