The Story Of

Kolkata’s Bapuji Cake

That Remains Irreplaceable At The City’s Tea Stalls

What is the Bapuji Cake?

A square-cut, butter-based sponge cake is what Bapuji cake is, and it is still sold in its distinctive printed wax-paper wrapper, usually in red, yellow, blue, or green. It belongs to the same family as the tutti frutti loaf cakes found around the country in many Indian bakeries, but it is denser, less sweet and its price is suited to daily consumption. In Bengal, it also goes by the name tiffin cake, thanks to being packed for school children's tiffin along with other foods. Unlike the luxurious gateaux or pastry-shop cakes, it has no cream or icing, and it does not change with the season like some of the sweets in the city. The same Bapuji cake recipe has been used to make cake after cake, with barely any changes, for over five decades.

Bapuji Cake History and Its Legacy

Bapuji Cake’s story begins in 1973, when industrialist Alokesh Jana set up a confectionery unit, New Howrah Bakery Private Limited, in Pallabpukur, Howrah, and later expanded operations to Hooghly. The cake launched at sixty paise a piece, perfect for Bengal, where a cheap, filling snack mattered more than novelty. Many instant foods that hit the streets, like vada pav in Mumbai, have similar stories. Over the decades, sixty paise crept up to three rupees, then five, then six, and now sits at roughly ₹8 per 55g piece. 

The Story of the Bapuji Cake Owner

New Howrah Bakery continues to be a family business since the day it was founded, and the founder, Alokesh Jana's sons, Amitabha and Animesh Jana, now run the company.  The word ‘Bapuji’ is an affectionate term for ‘father’, best known as Mahatma Gandhi's popular epithet, which gives the bakery's cheapest product a warm and dependable tag that has outlasted any modern-day fancy marketing campaign. Bapuji cake has never had any advertisement to date.

They continue to keep the pricing and recipe largely intact while widening the product line to include rusks, biscuits and other cake forms. But what’s a dessert story without a little trouble? The Bapuji name faced a legal challenge, with a trademark dispute over rights to the brand, which went to court in 2008. The outcome was in favour of the Jana family, and they kept their cakes and the name.

Bapuji Cake Ingredients

The ingredient list is basic, which also explains its cost, and there is no attempt to dress up the cake recipe with fancy creams, fruits, chocolate ganache and anything else, which is exactly why it has stayed cheap. A standard batch, whether made commercially or replicated at home, uses:

• Refined flour (maida)

• Butter and refined oil, used together for texture and cost balance

• Sugar

• Baking powder and baking soda

• Milk

• Vanilla essence

• Salt salt

• Tutti frutti (candied papaya bits)

• Petha or chalkumro morobba (candied ash gourd), the ingredient that gives the cake its chewy and tangy pockets

The cake bakes as a loaf and follows the same cake recipe as the average sponge cake, with the heavier candied fruit bits coated in flour to prevent them from sinking.

Is Bapuji Cake Eggless?

The answer depends on which version is being discussed – the tiffin-style version has been experimented with by some home bakers who want that slice of nostalgia online, and the eggs add structure to the Bapuji cake, giving it a lighter crumb. However, some of the New Howrah Bakery's commercial product range lists several of its dry fruit and slice cakes as eggless, which points to the company using an egg-free formulation for at least part of its current line-up. The cake might not be eggless, but the factory does make several eggless products.

Bapuji Cake Making, From Batter To Tea Shop Counter

Bapuji cake making follows an uncomplicated butter-cake method rather than anything technically demanding, which is why the bakery can sell this cake for such a low price:

• Butter, oil and sugar are creamed together until well combined

• Flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt are sieved and folded in

• Milk is added gradually to get a smooth, pourable batter

• Flour-dusted tutti frutti and petha go in last, folded to avoid sinking

• The batter is baked in a lined tin at a moderate oven temperature until set, then cooled, sliced into squares and wrapped

Commercially, the process is scaled up across New Howrah Bakery's manufacturing units, where raw material is sourced from vetted vendors and checked by quality teams at regular intervals, according to GetBengal's reporting on the company's operations.

Taste And Texture of the Bapuji Cake

Bapuji cakes tend to be mildly sweet, buttery and have a faint essence of vanilla, with none of the richness of a frosted celebration cake. This falls in line with many tea-time cakes, such as lemon loaf cake and Parsi mawa cake. The cake has a soft crumb, is a little dense and slightly crumbly rather than airy, closer to a pound cake than a chiffon sponge. 

The tutti frutti adds texture and pockets of sweetness, while the petha contributes a chewier quality that keeps the cake from being nauseatingly sweet. It’s one of those low-key cakes that disappears with tea, as the conversation ebbs and flows with the crumbs swept off by the tea seller after the customers leave. When in Kolkata, you might witness some locals dipping it in tea, much like they would a roti or something made with flour. When at a Bengali stall, a piping hot ‘bhaar er chaa’ is the standard combination with this cake.

Bapuji Cake vs Other Bengali Tea-Time Cakes

Try The Bapuji Cake Recipe At Home

For anyone who wants the tiffin cake without a trip to a Kolkata tea stall, or just misses the cakes from back home, if you are into baking or have been wanting to bake for a while, you must try this bapuji cake recipe. It might be the exact match to the factory version, since commercial production uses fixed vendor-sourced ingredients and equipment, but the flavour profile is close enough for nostalgia's sake.

Bapuji Cake Recipe

Ingredients

• All-purpose flour: 5 cups

• Eggs: 4

• Sugar: 2 cups

• Butter (room temperature): 50 gm

• Refined oil: 1 cup

• Tutti frutti: ½ cup

• Ash Gourd Candies (chopped into small pieces): ½ cup

• Baking powder: 2½ teaspoons

• Baking soda: ¼ teaspoon

• Salt: a pinch

• Vanilla essence: 1 teaspoon

• Milk (as required): ½ cup

Method

• Preheat the oven to 170°C, then line a cake tin with parchment paper.

• Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl.

• In another bowl, add melted butter, oil, and sugar, then beat to mix.

• While still beating, add eggs one at a time, until combined.

• Add vanilla essence and mix again.

• Fold the flour mix, in parts, into the wet ingredients, taking care not to deflate the egg mixture.

• Pour the milk in a stream and mix carefully.

• Coat the ash gourd candies and tutti frutti in flour and add them to the batter. This coating will prevent the fruit candies from sinking during baking.

• Transfer the batter into the lined cake tin and bake it in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes. A toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean. Serve the cake warm. 

Bapuji Cake is Integral To Kolkata's Culinary Landscape

The Bapuji cake is deeply woven into Kolkata’s tea culture, which people tend to miss when not in Kolkata, and which people have spent a lot of time at tea stalls in the city enjoying literature, the arts and debating to no end, whether that is at Rabindra Sadan, at College Street or Princep Ghat. It has been a fixture of school tiffin boxes for generations, paired with biscuits and chanachur in lunch bags across the city. From the ‘Bangali bhodrolok’, office-goers on a tight budget, to the rickshaw wala, and even bus and auto drivers, still munch on this cake. The cake sells over 50,000 pieces even today, which speaks volumes of its appeal.