Mumbai doesn’t do dessert in half measures. Cakes travel across neighbourhoods in autos, mithai boxes open during meetings, and birthdays tend to sprawl into multi-day affairs. Sweets sit at the centre of how the city celebrates. Yet eggless desserts, despite being essential to so many households, have often been treated as functional add-ons rather than objects of desire.
Based out of a cloud kitchen in Bandra West, the 100 percent eggless patisserie founded by Deepa and Rohit Desai has built its following by focusing on what happens after the first slice. The crack of a knife through chocolate, the moment something spills, the crunch that shows up where you least expect it.
“We’re constantly engaged in sensory exploration,” says Deepa Desai. “Flavour and texture combinations are what we strive for and work towards.”
That approach shapes the brand’s 2026 collection of 11 new desserts. Instead of reading like a seasonal drop, the line-up feels closer to a tasting menu stitched together over time. A gluten-free, sugar-free, vegan chocolate cranberry roasted almond cake sits alongside a kunafa pistachio chocolate cake layered with imported kataifi. Vanilla takes centre stage in Fleur de Vanille, expressed through crumble, cream, and a custard designed to flow at the right moment.
Eggless baking here sets the tone rather than the limits. For Rohit Desai, staying cloud-based has allowed the brand to sharpen its focus. “The cloud kitchen model isn’t a limitation, it’s our competitive advantage,” he says. “We can obsess over what matters: the sensory experience.”
That obsession is most obvious in the Rocher cake, which took six months to perfect. The brief was precise and demanding. “I wanted every bite to feel like you’re eating a Ferrero Rocher,” Rohit explains. Achieving that meant building crunch directly into the milk chocolate ganache, so texture runs through the cake rather than appearing as a garnish or surprise centre.
The kunafa pistachio chocolate cake follows the same thinking. Kataifi shatters delicately under the fork, giving way to smooth ganache and a dense pistachio paste made in-house. Each mouthful shifts between crisp, creamy, and nutty, keeping the experience lively all the way through.
Then there’s the gluten-free, sugar-free, vegan chocolate cranberry cake, one of the more ambitious offerings in the collection. Mumbai has seen a surge of wellness desserts that lean heavily on virtue and lightly on pleasure. Rohit, who is vegan himself, speaks openly about wanting something better. “I’ve tasted every disappointing option out there,” he says. “The challenge was creating something that delivers on the sensory experience that defines us.”
Here, oats flour gives structure, cranberries bring a sharp edge, and roasted almonds deliver crunch. The cake doesn’t lead with what’s missing. It leads with balance and bite.
For all the technical precision involved, Vanilla Beans remains most interested in what happens once the box is opened. The Desais often talk about desserts as social glue, something that creates pauses and openings. One customer story stays with them. A mother ordered their Belgian dark chocolate Nutella hazelnut cake for her younger son’s birthday after years of silence between her two sons. Over slices of cake, they began talking again. “The cake acted as a conversation piece,” Rohit recalls. “It gave them something to talk about.” She now orders the same cake every year.
It’s a reminder that dessert often plays a supporting role in moments that matter. It gives people something neutral, comforting, and shared to gather around.
The introduction of 100-gram cake tubs fits neatly into this philosophy. Small enough for a single sitting, they invite curiosity rather than ceremony. A spoonful of Madagascar vanilla custard, a bite of caramel sesame cheesecake, a crunch of chocolate and hazelnut. Each tub becomes a low-commitment way to explore flavour and texture.
As Mumbai’s dessert scene grows louder and more trend-driven, Vanilla Beans moves with intention. “We’d rather be remembered than be first,” Rohit says.
What makes this Bandra kitchen compelling isn’t novelty for its own sake. It’s attention. To texture, to ingredients, to the role dessert plays in how people connect. When handled with care, even a single slice can carry a story, and in Mumbai, that story often unfolds around the table.