Annu's Mawa Cake - Sugar and Space

You know how when you’re out somewhere and you smile at a stranger sometimes? And their smile extends from their mouth, to their eyes and straight to your heart? Well, Adishri’s mastered that art. And, I look forward to that smile every day I go to work. I’ve heard great things about her Mawa Cake, but learning about her Annu’s association with it is one of the most heartwarming stories I’ve heard in a while.

‘Food, the Feeling of Home’: A series of stories exploring nostalgia, the power of food, our memories and stories of ‘home’.

My grandfather (Annu as we lovingly call him) was a renowned cricket coach. He played club cricket for Dadar Union club and corporate cricket for Tata. No wonder he made a lot of Parsi friends! I accompanied him for all the lunches and dinners to his friends’ and ate Mawa (evaporated milk) Cake at every house I went to. The milky texture with notes of cardamom and the oomph of the mawa in each bite transported me to my own wonderland of spongy clouds and mawa flavoured rivers.

Looking Back

I dreamt of serving such cakes to my guests and facilitating their trips to my wonderland. I was very attached to Annu. A large part of what I am today I owe to him. I have learnt to be humble from him. To love your craft, your knowledge and the best thing you can do in your life, is pass on your expertise to others. I get my love for cricket from him too. I analyze matches and have discussions on technique with my brother who was also a professional cricketer.

The first cricket memory I have with Annu is me sitting on his lap maybe around 3 years old and him explaining cricket technicalities to me. I learnt very early what a ‘no ball‘ is, what a cover drive is, what is the sweet sound of the bat and what is a LBW dismissal. It’s amazing how these memories from so many years ago are etched so clearly in my head.

As I grew up, I started baking and experimenting with all the recipes that I saw online or in books. The one thing that I did not do, was try baking the Mawa Cake. We lost Annu when I was six and I lost a huge part of me with him. I never had the courage to address that pain until a few years ago. I started talking about it and in this way also addressed the void in my life. He would have turned 100 in January 2019. To honour his memory, I started experimenting Annu’s Mawa Cake recipe in 2018. I wanted to perfect it by 2019. And I did.

Looking Ahead

After a lot of research and experiments, I perfected the Mawa Cake. The first bite I took of the perfect Mawa Cake quickly transported to my childhood wonderland with my Annu holding my hand and walking besides me. I had tears in my eyes. And at that instant, I knew I had to serve this cake to others. I knew that this cake would transport us back to simpler times when family and love were the only things we knew and spending time with our loved ones was our utmost priority.

This was when I decided to start ‘Bakery Eight’, a small home based bakery where I bake simple cakes; each mouthful inducing a nostalgic trip, where you are transported to your childhood wonderland. At Bakery Eight, I try to create the feeling of home in each of our cakes.