Slice of life

DH journalist Asra Mavad, an aspiring baker herself, works at an iconic bakery in Bengaluru for two days.

I t’s 9.30 am. I have arrived at Thom’s Bakery and Supermarket in Bengaluru. I stand by the door of its bakery area for a second, admiring the freshly baked loaves of bread kept for cooling. The perfect shade of golden brown, I say. Forcing myself out of my reverie, I turn to notice a mesmerising dance unfold here.

Talented bakers operate in graceful synchrony, a well-practised ballet of flour-dusted hands and grey uniform-clad chefs and sous chefs. Each one plays his part, kneading dough, shaping loaves, julienning vegetables to make the filling, and tending to bubbling breads with precision. The hiss of steam, the rhythmic thud of dough being kneaded, and the soft hum of the industrial mixer blend seamlessly.

Stepping into a bakery in the morning is like entering a realm where dreams are baked into reality and it has taken me nine months to get here. In December 2022, my colleague and I set out to find a bakery in Bengaluru that would allow me to work as a baker for a day.

Baking holds a special place in my heart. There’s something enchanting and calming about working with precisely measured ingredients. And if I am allowed to brag, I can make everything from delicate madeleines to indulgent basque cheesecakes. Since I was 12, I’ve harboured a dream to start a bakery.

The bakery makes about 450 loaves of bread including white, brown and multigrain every day. 

Okay. I am rambling. So my colleague and I had our eyes set on some of Bengaluru’s most iconic bakeries — Thom’s Bakery in Pulikeshi Nagar, V B Bakery in V V Puram, O G Variar and Sons in Rajajinagar and, of course, the classic Iyengar bakeries. We have so many options; we will get through to one easily, we thought. But boy, were we wrong! Every bakery we called turned down our request. “We don’t let outsiders into the bakery area. It’s risky,” they said. Must be the safety hygiene protocols, we consoled ourselves. We then tried our luck in Kolkata only to be rejected again.

After seven months, Binu Thomas, partner at Thom’s, showed some readiness to let me go behind the scenes of his Bengaluru establishment, which went viral last year when cricketer Virat Kohli stopped by to get puffs for his actor-wife Anushka Sharma. It would take me two more months of back-and-forth calls to finally make it to his baking unit.

Nostalgic days

Binu’s father, entrepreneur P M Thomas, started Thom’s as a cafe and restaurant in 1970. Now, Binu and his brother Biju run the establishment. It has undergone a few changes since, but the taste and quality of their mutton puff, mutton samosa, plum cake and white bread haven’t changed since day one, Binu says of the most popular items. They make about 50 sweet and savoury items in a day.

Lead Mutton puffs, mutton samosas, plum cakes and white bread are items at Thom's Bakery and Supermarket in Bengaluru. 

Before the advent of fancy supermarkets, Thom’s was my family’s go-to destination during Ramzan. My mum and I would grab imported items like Nestlé cream and Worcestershire sauce that only Thom’s stocked back then. After loading up our cart, we’d stroll to the bakery section to get some goodies for Iftar. The doughnuts were a must! So from being a customer for 15 years to now getting to go behind that magical store counter, it felt surreal.

Magical world

Manager Rajeev C ushers me into the baking area and introduces me to Mark, one of the head chefs. “Every day we make about 450 loaves of bread, including white, brown and multigrain. Our plain white bread sells the fastest,” Mark tells me. He has been a part of Thom’s for about 20 years. That reflects in his familiarity with the space as he moves around effortlessly, supervising the making of breads, cookies, and puffs.

The author decorating a vanilla strawberry cake. 

On my first visit, I get to witness breadmaking. It begins with the meticulous measuring of ingredients — flour, water, oil, yeast, and salt. These are then combined and kneaded into a supple dough and set aside for almost an hour to rise. The dough is then deftly shaped into loaves of equal weight and placed into greased moulds. These are now ready to enter the magical world of the oven.

The atmosphere inside the bakery is one of camaraderie. The employees share glances and smiles between tasks. Around 12.30 pm, the bread emerges from the oven, warm and with a golden crust. I love devouring a freshly baked slice of bread that crumbles between my fingers. The variety of things it can be filled with is another thing I love about the bread.

Sorry for digressing again. I see multi-storeyed trays being wheeled around. In some, loaves of bread and buns are kept for proofing. In some, baked goodies are kept for cooling.

I am beginning to realise what makes a bakery ‘iconic’. It’s the bakers. They are the beating heart of a bakery. They work in sync to blend science, art and alchemy. Their hands knead life into the dough, their eyes keenly mind the temperatures, and their instincts turn flour and fire into fluffy goodness.

The team of 16 head chefs, assistant chefs and helpers at Thom’s is a diverse mix. Some are Bengalureans and some, like Shrimanth Bose, hail from West Bengal. “I was always interested in baking. A friend told me that Bengaluru has a big bakery culture, so I came here in search of a job. I took up small gigs to learn the basics,” Shrimanth says as he spreads minced mutton on slabs of pastry dough to make spicy mutton rolls.

I saw female staff in the store front but none in the bakery area.  

Bumpy ride

Nobody on the baking floor is as vocal about their passion for baking. It is just a job for them, I gather. “We follow recipes. We follow a daily schedule. We start with the puffs, we get big orders out of the way and we then do standard goodies for the store,” Vignesh tells me while rolling croissants. “But we do love making plum cakes,” Namesh chips in. 

However, I see that passion in their bosses. Binu and Biju had to cut short their education to take over the business when their dad passed away in 1989. They were 19 and 21 respectively. Talking of Binu, when he is not working, he watches cooking videos and shows like ‘MasterChef’. “If I find some recipe interesting, I talk to my chefs. My nephew Atul is also enthusiastic about the business and likes coming up with new recipes,” he says.

Brainstorming for new recipes, being surrounded by sinful confectioneries, and seeing customers smile as they bite into a fluffy doughnut you make — what’s not to like about working in a bakery? Alas! That’s not how it plays out in reality.

Brothers Binu and Biju took over the establishment after their father passed away in 1989. 

“We start working around 6 am by laminating the dough to make pastry items later in the day. The laminated dough is left to rest for two hours. In the meantime, other workers start prepping the fillings for savoury items. Then, one by one, different doughnuts are prepared and assembly begins. We barely get to catch a break, plus there is no room for mistakes,” explains Mark.

This kind of pressure is new to me. When I bake at home, I don’t have my job on the line and a mistake can sometimes be a boon. One time, I was making the typical Iyengar bakery honey cake. I messed up the measurements and incorporated too much air into the batter. What should have been a juicy sponge cake turned out to be a bland chiffon cake. Luckily, my friends loved the texture and polished it off. Can you imagine this happening at a popular bakery?

Even Thom’s 53-year journey has been a bumpy one. Biju says, “Not many know that Thom’s was a full-blown restaurant and we had to shut it down after our father’s death. This was due to some union problems. But we managed to keep the bakery and a small supermarket running.”

Their clientele has also dwindled since the pandemic. “Only on weekends, we have a good crowd. On weekdays, many times our bakery items have remained unsold. Some of the old clientele are no longer around and new customers are a floating crowd,” explains Binu.

Schools in the neighbourhood are a loyal bunch though. “They’re one of the reasons we don’t raise our prices even if the tomato or something else becomes costlier. Even if we increase the price of an item by Rs 10, they’ll be unhappy,” Binu shares.

Still, Thom’s remains busy on most days. So much so that the staff barely has time to notice who is visiting, whether commoners or celebs like Deepika Padukone. “We come to know which celebrity visited us later, through social media. That’s what happened during Virat Kohli’s visit (when the cashier failed to recognise him),” says Binu.

3-minute challenge

Given that I have only ever baked at home for my family and friends, I am nervous to bake in a commercial kitchen. Luckily, I don’t have to start my shift at 6 am. I am called at 10 am so that they can get some big orders out of the way.

As I stroll into Thom’s the next day, Mark tells me that I will be making sausage rolls and a cake. We begin at once. Mark mixes the dough and Shrimanth helps me knead and roll the dough. “You aren’t applying enough pressure,” the two bakers interrupt me at the same time and ask me “to give it my all”. Rolling out the pastry dough is a balance of precision and finesse. The pastry dough can’t be too thin as it can tear. And it can’t be too thick as it can go undercooked. With that advice in mind, I take a giant rolling pin and roll a big blob of dough into a rectangle, 1 cm thick. Next, I cut small rectangles from it using a cutter, place the sausages and a filling of onions in spiced tomato sauce, and roll them into perfect logs.

A sense of accomplishment swells inside me as we assemble the rolls, brush them with egg wash, sprinkle sesame seeds, place them on the baking trays and watch them puff up.

Biting into a freshly baked sausage roll is a revelation. I understand why iconic bakeries are able to repeat their magic day after day. Precision, discipline, giving each process the time it deserves, and understanding the science of each ingredient (bread dough has more gluten than bun dough) are some secrets to their success.

I am told the orders are increasing and, for my next task, I need to choose between baking and decorating a cake in the interest of time. I choose the latter as I already know how to make buttercream flowers and intricate motifs with icing sugar.

I am assigned to work under assistant chef Arif on the second floor. The air here is thick with the scent of vanilla, butter, and warm dough. Bakers with flour-dusted aprons are working on croissants and cakes with razor-sharp focus.

I’m ushered into Arif’s air-conditioned ‘cabin’, which can accommodate three people to stand and decorate cakes. Arif is in his 20s like me. I challenge him to a bake-off. We’ll have the same ingredients and the one with the best design wins, I propose. “It takes me three minutes to decorate a cake,” he says. I drop the idea. I know I can’t beat that.

Picking up the offset spatula, I use some whipped cream to sandwich the two layers of cake. Next, I give it a crumb coat and begin smoothing out the edges. Despite having baked at least a hundred cakes, I am nervous today and I am looking for Arif’s approval at each step. My hands are shaking, which Arif notices. He guides me to the next step, a simplified mirror glaze. I place white chocolate hearts on top to finish off that vanilla-strawberry cake. This definitely takes me more than three minutes.

Bangalore bakeries, a throwback

The bakery scene took off in Bengaluru during the colonial era. Started to cater to the needs of the Britishers, these bakeries focused on making bread, biscuits and cakes and followed traditional European recipes. Names like Albert Bakery opened in Fraser Town in 1902 and are carrying on that legacy since.

“From Albert to Koshy’s, you’ll find many bakeries in the cantonment area. S P Bakery and Thomson’s are smaller bakeries in the area but they make the best bread,” says Aslam Gafoor, food and hospitality professional based in Bengaluru.

These bakeries didn’t follow the Iyengar bakery model. That is, they stuck to making simple and authentic European-style fare. The Iyengar bakery model, however, introduced items like khara buns, vegetable puffs, and honey cakes, by fusing Indian flavours with Western ones.

The first Iyengar bakery is said to have opened in Bangalore in 1898. “Called B B Bakery, it was started by H Thirumalachar. It is the same family that runs V B Bakery in V V Puram,” says food blogger Vinay Nagaraju.

But it was the success of British-style bakeries in the following decades that inspired Iyengar bakeries to open in a big way in the 1970s and 80s.

Prem Koshy, owner of Koshy’s, the first establishment in the city to have a fully automated bakery for bread making, outlines the differences between the two models. “The Iyengar bakeries added a lot of sugar to their breads and buns. They had milk breads, sweet breads and everything was very sweet. They were trying to satisfy the local palate. Moreover, Iyengar bakeries did not package their items until recently. But (cantonment) bakeries like Fathima and Koshy’s always used to package and sell pre-sliced breads,” he says.

Like this story? Write to [e-mail]