Cakes

Yummy!! That’s the first word that pops up in my head when I think of these delicious baked portions of heaven. Cakes are something that have been synonymous with celebration in almost everybody’s lives. Be it a wedding, a birthday, a farewell or a team achievement, all we need is a big cake cut into more pieces than visibly possible. There is something about the smell of the cake, fresh from the oven, that infuses some sort of a happiness drug inside me. Let me tell you a bit more about the journey of my relation with cakes.

My tryst with cakes began with a tiny bakery in a small mining town called Mosaboni near Ghatsila in Jharkhand (then Bihar). You see, the entire paternal side of my family lived in Mosaboni back then and most of my uncles were employed with Hindustan Copper Ltd in the Mosaboni Copper mines. It was a mining town with British influences strewn all over in the form of colonial bungalows, golf courses and some of the still intact area names. Weekends for me meant travelling from my home in Kharagpur to Mosaboni and have the time of my life being spoiled as the youngest of almost 20 cousins. I could find more than one taker for a trip to the Bakery, but mostly it was my dad. You may notice that I haven’t mentioned the name of the Bakery.

That is because it will always be the “Bakery” in my head, I never knew it’s name and somehow that is the charm of the place for me. And also that it sold Black Forest cakes. (Ofcourse not authentic ones from Europe, but knowing that name back then, let alone actually selling a cake with that name, is something to be given credit for). That bakery was, is and always will occupy a happy place in my memories.

Next comes Little Sisters, the bakery which was part of a restaurant of the same name.

Unfortunately, neither do I have a picture of the place nor do I have any significant memories to mention. But this was the go to place if you wanted a cake and lived near the IIT campus, atleast until the Cafe Coffee Day opened inside the campus, which in turn opened our doors to the world of walnut brownies and choco-sizzlers, all subsidized to our sheer joy.

Amidst all of this, there used to be the bread sellers on bicycles. I dont know if this was common in where you lived or presently live, but in my locality, every evening a few men used to sell bread loafs and other baked things on bicycles, shouting out “bread! bread!”. You had to call them out to stop them. My mother used to stop him when she needed to buy bread, and as if out of magic, me and my sister would be standing beside her with plates.

(Similar representation)

That meant we wanted pastries, any that he had. If not, then cream rolls. Trust me, it really didn’t matter what the flavor was, in what standards they had been baked or if we were going to grow fatter by having them. Those were the days. Somehow, that pastry still tastes better than the chocolate laden sinful cakes we have now.

That very sister of mine is a great baker now and bakes cakes easier than she makes rotis.

It has been ages since I went to a bakery.

Don’t you think its time?

(Image Courtesy: Tumblr and Blogspot)