Baking in Bombay

Last update: 24^th July, 2010. This post was really itching for an update because so many of you emailed me with questions, recommendations and information about what I use in the kitchen.  I’m hardly able to keep up with replying to individual emails so here are all your questions answered, hopefully.

I get many mails from readers looking for Mumbai’s best baking suppliers or cookware vendors. Lots of you are interested in finding the best places to buy food products such as imported cheeses, imported meats, herbs, spices, and chocolates in Mumbai. Buying home kitchen equipment is also top of the list.

I’ve been shopping for ingredients and bakeware in Bombay for many years, and have had some good and some not-so-good experiences. I’ve recorded most of these to share with you. I am obviously NOT affiliated to any of the places mentioned here in any way, so the reviews are non-biased.

Over the years, food shopping in Bombay has become easier and easier. The availability of quality cooking and baking ingredients in Bombay is steadily increasing and prices are becoming more competitive. So scroll down to read about the best places to shop for food in Bombay, and if you don’t find something you like or would like to recommend a food store in Bombay, then just drop me an email or leave a comment.

Cooking and Baking Ingredients in Mumbai

The number one request I get from readers is for a place to shop for quality baking ingredients and imported food items in Bombay.

• General ingredients: For chocolate chips, canned blueberries, and tahini paste, Philly cheese, pine nuts, spices, hazelnuts, walnuts, Nutella, Hershey chocolate Alfa at Irla is my preferred choice. Though you could find them at Crawford Market as well.
• Imported ingredients: Fancy cheeses with names hard to pronounce, marinated olives and peppers, Sri Lankan cinnamon, fresh bocconcini, Jamie Oliver bottled stuff, Japanese ingredients, fresh endamame beans, fava beans, artichoke, imported salami, bacon and cold cuts can be found at Hypercity, Indigo Deli, Godrej Nature’s Basket. You can also get cheese at wholesale rates at Crawford Market (Eram’s, Shop no. 123).
• Herbs: You can find fresh herbs (chives, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, etc) and cold cuts at any of the supermarkets like Hypercity or Star Bazaar.
• Sugars: Light brown sugar, dark brown sugar and muscovado sugar is available at Hypercity and Alfa but I really don’t recommend spending so much on them (they’re 10x the price of granulated sugar). You can use BlueBird Demerera sugar instead, which you can find at your local grocer. Another place I brown cane sugar at was Godrej Nature’s Basket. You can find it under the Conscious Food label.
• Vanilla: Fellow bakers! Please stop using the tiny bottle of vanilla essences. That is not real vanilla. I was so happy to find pure Vanilla beans on a trip to Bangalore (Maison des Gourmets on Lavelle Road, if you’re interested) that I made my own Vanilla extract – it’s really, really easy. I urge you to make your own. You will never use anything else. You can find vanilla beans at Godrej Nature’s Basket and Indigo Delicatessen in Bombay. In case you don’t have time to make the extract, use the innards of the vanilla bean. Read Vanilla 101 and How to Make Vanilla Bean Sugar for more information.
• Buttermilk: Sure, we don’t get buttermilk here but that doesn’t mean we can’t make anything that calls for it. While I may have buttermilk written in my recipes (because that is the preferred choice for the recipe), I have been very successful in using the same amount of stirred yoghurt. Although, this is not the only substitution. Joy the baker has some pretty neat substitutions.
• Chocolate: I use Callebaut for baking. You can find the most common baking chocolate: Morde and Selbourne at Arife, Alfa, Crawford Market.
• I use instant yeast for baking bread. It comes in a 500g vacuum sealed pack. It’s a lot better than the crappy active dry yeast (NEVER use this, it smells so foul) and has a much longer shelf life than fresh yeast (which you can get from your local baker).
• Japanese Ingredients: Maido India sells some funky Japanese ingredients at Godrej Nature’s Basket and Hypercity. Buy yourself a tube of wasabi, if nothing else and it will kick your regular mayonnaise up a notch.
• Lavender: While I got my lavender from the US, you can get a pot from the Lalbaugh nursery in Bangalore.
• Sea salt: Anglesey Sea salt is available under the Waitrose label at Hypercity and Fleur de Sel is available at Nature’s Basket.
• Golden Syrup: Haiko at Powai or Nature’s Basket
• Dark and Light Corn Syrup (Karo): Alfa, Sante’s Crawford Market
• Phyllo Sheets: At Haiko, if you’re lucky (I haven’t been, but a readers tells me so)
• Molasses: I noticed a bottle of Grandma’s Molasses at Crawford Market (check the Crawford Market Guide below) but was too petrified to ask the price given he was selling Morton Sea Salt that costs just $3 for Rs. 4,000!
• Dulce de Leche: Why not just make some Dulce de Leche yourself?
• Whipping cream: Tropolite or Rich’s whipping cream (non-dairy) as well as Parsi dairy cream work well. Although, make sure you use the Parsi dairy cream immediately.
• Bread flour: I’ve noticed Waitrose strong bread flour at the store, but besides that I don’t know of any place that has bread flours. Most people add in gluten powder to the regular flour to increase protein content. I haven’t tried that.

Cooking Equipment and Bakeware in Mumbai

There are many good quality cookware and bakeware suppliers in Mumbai, so you don’t always have to rely on your cousin to come over from abroad!

• A little about my oven: How I wish I could say I’ve got the lah-di-dah built-in oven, but I don’t. What I use is Nova toaster oven that’s been doing a pretty good job for the past 5 years. Can I advice you on your microwave convection oven? I’m afraid not – I don’t use one and therefore don’t have recommendations on what you should buy.
• And a little about my KitchenAid:  My uncle was kind enough to lug the 12 kilo machine from London for me. A word of caution, do not ask friends/relatives coming down from USA to get you a KitchenAid. Although, cheaper than UK, the US machine runs on 110V. You don’t want to shorten its life by using it here on 220V. Before the KitchenAid, I used a Black and Decker hand blender that held me in good stead for a pretty long time. David Lebovitz talks about things you must consider before lugging a KitchenAid from America to Europe, which applies to India as well.
• I also adore my CuisineArt ice cream maker. It makes ice cream churning so much simpler, and I have my favourite Strawberry Frozen Yoghurt in 30 minutes! I got it from the US, but I suggest, for the same reasons above, you get yours from Europe. I do not have any recommendations for an ice-cream maker available in India.
• Bakeware: For all sorts of cake pans, tart pans, dessert rings, muffin pans, springform pans (shoddy quality, though) Arife at Crawford Market and Andheri Station (West) is your best bet. For better quality stuff, Teflon, non-stick (though not so much variety) head to Hypercity, Home Stop or Home Center at Lifestyle.
• Measuring Cups: I use standard American size measuring cups (Kitchen Aid) and spoons because a lot of the baking I do is from American cookbooks. But you must know that I resort to measuring cups when I’m feeling very lazy. I much prefer to use the weighing scale.
• Ramekins: Saria Steel Depot, Home Center at Lifestyle.
• OXO kitchen gadgets are available at HomeStop. They have everything from a vegetable peeler to a salad spinner.
• Canning jars: Italian canning jars (Quattro Staggioni) are available at Alfa anf Mahavir Stores in Santacruz. And you don’t just have to use them for canning
• Cupcake liners: The ones I used are sent my gracious readers so I’m covered for a while. However, Arife (Crawford Market) does have silicone cupcake liners in pretty colours.
• Cake boards, cake boxes: And lots more available at Cheapjack’s on Hill Road in Bandra.
• Le Creuset: JW Marriott, Tresorie and Indigo Deli stock cast iron goodness.
• Wilton: Arife stocks Wilton colours, glitters, sugarcraft tools and lots more.
• Piping Tips: Have a look at Noor piping tips.
• Bread flour: I noticed strong brown bread flower under the Waitrose label, but as such we don’t get bread flours with high protein. What most people do is add gluten powder to the flour to increase protein content. I haven’t tried it though.

The Crawford Market Guide

If there is something that you haven’t found, you are bound to find it in the Crawford Market Guide I’ve worked on. Here is a map of the inside of it. If you have any suggestions on adding to this, please discuss in the comments section below.  I will upload the uncut version of the story soon!

Cookbooks in Mumbai

So where do I find all these awesome cookbooks that I keep making recipes from? It used to be gracious friends and cousins coming down from USA/UK, but now local bookstores + Flipkart.com make me very happy. For recommendations please check my Amazon Store. Also, The Bombay Baking Co at JW Marriott in Juhu has some very nice books in their shop. A charming place with equipment, ingredients, books and orchids. Wish there were more places like these!

Some Must-Haves

I’ve written up a post on Baking Essentials, that should be extremely useful as well.

..or “I have a friend coming down from the US/UK/France/Baker’s Wonderland, what do you think I should get?”

Now this depends entirely on what you like to do in the kitchen the most. If cheesecakes are your weakness then a good springform pan is a must, but if you’re going to be making it just once a year then it’s really not that necessary, unless you are a kitchenware junkie like I am. But then again, we are addressing must haves. So here are some things that should definitely be on your list:

• Silpat – you will never need to line your baking sheet with wax paper/butter paper/parchment paper! These are reusable and very worth the USD 20.
• A Microplane zester – zesting your citrus or even hard cheese like Parmesan has never been easier. I probably sound like their marketing department, but I really do love this tool.
• Anything Wilton (because everything isn’t available here yet)! They have the cutest cupcake liners and silicone moulds.
• If you like adding colour to your food (I absolutely detest, and the only time I gave in was when I made red velvet cupcakes), you could get McCormicks food colour. I have the set in Neon.
• Dried cherries, cranberries, blueberries, apricots and whatever else you want – they keep well and they can be used in so many recipes. I love using dried cherries in my black forest cookies.(While you can get these here, you’d be better off with bulk packages).
• If you’d like to splurge a little, definitely go get some Valrhona.
• I’ve tried to be creative and use different things as a substitute for a cooling rack without much success. I’ve had to space my baking across time just because I didn’t have a cooling rack and had to use the wire rack from the oven as a cooling rack. This is definitely a must have! I especially love this three-tier Wilton cooling rack.
• If they love you enough to carry a 5 kilo pan, then by all means get a cast iron skillet. And if they’re willing to double that, then one for me as well, please. And it’s totally worth it for $18 when here the only thing you will find is Le Creuset which will burn a hole in your pocket (but make your kitchen look so pretty!)

Events in the city

I update Bombay Eaters with the city’s latest food centric events and fun things as and when I come across them. Hop over, and if you’d like to contribute to it or have a tip or two to share, simply shoot me an e-mail.

Didn’t find this comprehensive enough or you know something that would be appropriate for this list? Mail me at shaheen(at)purplefoodie.com!

Map with all these locations!

Here is a Google map of all the places listed above. Find them with their complete address!
View Baking in Bombay in a larger map