If you're looking for the best Christmas plum cake in Bengaluru, chances are you'll be directed to a small bakery called Thomsons. It is also likely that on arriving at the given address, you won’t spot the shop. Thomsons’ plum cake is as famous any Christmas cake from the city's landmark Koshy's, its supermarket bakeries All Saints and Fatima’s and even the redoubtable Nilgiris chain. But Thomsons is just one tiny 50-year-old shop hidden behind a giant 150-year-old gulmohar tree on a busy market street in Cox Town.
Inside the long glass display cases of the narrow store are blue, green and pink cakes for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and just any old day of the week. But what Thomsons says is the "best plum cake in town" is stashed away in a lower back shelf – a one kilo cylinder in a rich, dark brown.
“Everyone uses the same recipe but we use the best ingredients," said CT Abraham, who owns and runs the shop. Careful not to reveal too many trade secrets, Abraham says that the cake is made by mixing these ingredients two months ahead of baking, so that the mix matures and the flavours emerge stronger.
“What happens in all these big places is they simply dump everything and beat up the cake," he said. "Here we have a process that takes about one hour for the cake to be beaten up till it gets into the mould.” The final touch is baking the cake in an old-style wood-fired oven installed in Thomsons’ factory in 1962. This oven, one of the few left in the city, infuses Thomsons’ signature woody flavour to the rich plum taste.
Neither Abraham nor his brother George Thomas, who helps with the Thomsons business, are professionals in the baking business. The former is a chartered accountant and the latter a finance executive working in Singapore. Their bakery runs on the systems – a corner shop and a two-room factory down the road – set up by their parents in 1962. Even today, advertising for Thomsons is by word of mouth. “We have two generations of customers coming," Abraham said. "People who got married then, 30 or 40 years ago, ordered our cake. Now their children getting married also order our cake.”
In December, Thomsons makes and sells about 5,000 kg of plum cake, as much as it sells in the other 11 months of the year together. Yet, it’s about a tenth of the output of the big Christmas cake makers in Bengaluru. Abraham’s focus is on maintaining quality and that, he says, comes only with personal attention to the cake making. Abraham, his brother or a third member of their Syrian Christian family is always present when a batch of cake is being mixed. They have no intention of moving from their single oven to a larger set up if it means switching from wood-fired baking to gas-powered ovens.
For Abraham and his family, running Thomsons is not about competing with bigger players but about maintaining a legacy. “We have chosen not to expand because we wouldn’t be able to manage. Somebody wanted 11,000 pieces of cake but we are not able to supply that,” said Abraham.
He added, “Our parents wish was that we should not close this after them. If someone eats our cake they are bound to come back a second time. That’s the pleasure we get.”
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Inside the long glass display cases of the narrow store are blue, green and pink cakes for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and just any old day of the week. But what Thomsons says is the "best plum cake in town" is stashed away in a lower back shelf – a one kilo cylinder in a rich, dark brown.
“Everyone uses the same recipe but we use the best ingredients," said CT Abraham, who owns and runs the shop. Careful not to reveal too many trade secrets, Abraham says that the cake is made by mixing these ingredients two months ahead of baking, so that the mix matures and the flavours emerge stronger.
“What happens in all these big places is they simply dump everything and beat up the cake," he said. "Here we have a process that takes about one hour for the cake to be beaten up till it gets into the mould.” The final touch is baking the cake in an old-style wood-fired oven installed in Thomsons’ factory in 1962. This oven, one of the few left in the city, infuses Thomsons’ signature woody flavour to the rich plum taste.
Neither Abraham nor his brother George Thomas, who helps with the Thomsons business, are professionals in the baking business. The former is a chartered accountant and the latter a finance executive working in Singapore. Their bakery runs on the systems – a corner shop and a two-room factory down the road – set up by their parents in 1962. Even today, advertising for Thomsons is by word of mouth. “We have two generations of customers coming," Abraham said. "People who got married then, 30 or 40 years ago, ordered our cake. Now their children getting married also order our cake.”
In December, Thomsons makes and sells about 5,000 kg of plum cake, as much as it sells in the other 11 months of the year together. Yet, it’s about a tenth of the output of the big Christmas cake makers in Bengaluru. Abraham’s focus is on maintaining quality and that, he says, comes only with personal attention to the cake making. Abraham, his brother or a third member of their Syrian Christian family is always present when a batch of cake is being mixed. They have no intention of moving from their single oven to a larger set up if it means switching from wood-fired baking to gas-powered ovens.
For Abraham and his family, running Thomsons is not about competing with bigger players but about maintaining a legacy. “We have chosen not to expand because we wouldn’t be able to manage. Somebody wanted 11,000 pieces of cake but we are not able to supply that,” said Abraham.
He added, “Our parents wish was that we should not close this after them. If someone eats our cake they are bound to come back a second time. That’s the pleasure we get.”