Dark and boozy, light and fruity, or somewhere in between—carol season draws a Pavlovian craving for rummy, plummy Christmas cakes from all of us. Home bakers around the country have been prepping to meet our hankering for months, soaking proprietary combinations of nuts, fruits, and spices in all sorts of alcohol, from wine and rum to whisky and brandy. To find you the best cakes that taste like Christmas, we spent the last few days scouring our WhatsApp food groups, nudging our favourite hosts and finally urging them to stop gatekeeping their favourite finds. Below, our list of some seriously fine homemade confections for your festive table this year.
Mumbai
Sweetfix by Romita
Romita Das Basu’s rich, aromatic and warmly spiced rum-soaked cake contains plenty of dried fruit that has been steeped in alcohol for six months.
The Blue Mango by Shweta Katiyar
Known for her festive, decadent, juicy rum-filled cakes, Katiyar has managed to ship hers across the country.
Premadonna by Prema Rodrigues
Rodrigues’s warmly spiced cakes loaded with well-macerated currants, berries, raisins, and candied fruits come in family size, perfect size, and party size.
Bengaluru
Spicecharmer Bakes by Jyoti Varne
Jyoti Varne’s rich, boozy bundt plum cake comes highly recommended on every food-focussed WhatsApp group.
House of Anglo by Karen Martin
Every Xmas, Martin, an Anglo-Indian home chef, makes a gold-flecked traditional Xmas cake that is fed with ladlesful of liquor.
Chennai
Global Theeni by Smitha Kuttaya
Kuttaya has been baking cakes for 25 years. Her Royal Plum Cake has figs, almonds, raisins, sultanas, black dates, cashew nuts, candied orange peel, caramel, and freshly ground spices, all soaked in wine and rum for three months.
The Bashful Baker by Maria Jose
Maria Jose makes a plum cake that is true to her Malayali Syrian Christian roots. It’s loaded with nuts and fruits that have soaked in rum for a year.
Delhi
Pure Bread by Manisha Mukherjee
Cranberries, apricots, kiwi, pineapple, mango, blueberries—Mukherjee’s plum cake has so much more than just raisins and is also available in alcohol-free, eggless, and stevia-sweetened versions.
Chocestra by Mahek Parkash
We want to be in Parkash’s fragrant kitchen. Her Xmas cake is made with a whole lotta spices—cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves—and rum, of course.
Kolkata
Sinful Bite by Houli by Payel Baidya
Baidya’s Christmas cake is the most colourful we’ve seen this year, blanketed as it is with bright pieces of dried candied fruits like kiwi, pineapple, and cherries.
Peri Peri Chef by Divisha Saini
Saini has previously worked with Fabelle Chocolates, ITC, and The Oberoi in Kolkata. Her Christmas cake is a small-batch eggless treat.
Shillong
The MBA Chef by Sunanda Banik
Is that a bottle of Red Label we see in Banik’s hand? This MBA turned home baker soaks her Xmas cake’s dried fruits and nuts in whisky and Old Monk.
Happy Bites by Sheetal Goyal Agarwal
Agarwal, a winner at the Shillong Cake Show, makes a glazed, fruit-studded loaf-style Xmas cake.
Goa
Chef Zenobia Dos Remedios of Savoured Stories
Zenobia Dos Remedios uses her family’s 150-year-old slow recipe to make a dark, rich cake with treacle, homemade rum-soaked fruit, cashews, walnuts, almonds, and homemade cured orange peel. Call +91 8999238561.
