In Delhi, Christmas begins as much at bakery counters as at church. Across neighbourhoods in Delhi-NCR, the festival announces itself not only with carols and midnight mass, but with queues outside bakeries, plum cakes booked weeks in advance, underscoring yearly family rituals.
At Maxim's Bakers in Kailash Colony, Christmas arrives at speed. The rush is driven less by slow, walk-in neighbourhood sales and more by bulk corporate orders and delivery-led demand. Inside, the shop is packed with boxes stacked . Friends drift in, young families scan the counter, and delivery workers shuttle in and out with parcels headed across the city. The rush peaks in the days just before Christmas, compressing weeks of preparation into a narrow window of demand.
Established in 1969, Maxims is known for both egg and eggless plum cakes, sold largely in bigger formats. Egg-based plum cakes are priced at around ₹1,200, while the 400-gram eggless fruit cake sells for about ₹1,200 as well. Unlike many traditional bakeries that rely on raisins, tutti-frutti and mixed dried fruits, Maxims uses cashews as its dominant dry fruit; a choice the baker says lends the cake a lighter texture and a less densely sweet finish.
“Our rush usually starts around December 21 and goes on till the 27th,” says store manager Pankaj Bisht. “Those few days decide the season for us.”
A significant portion of Maxims’ business comes from corporate bulk orders. “We have companies that have been ordering from us for 10 to 15 years,” Bisht says. “Just last week, one corporate client placed an order for nearly 500 kilograms of plum cake.”
Cake has no religion
For some customers, the cake has become a ritual even without a religious context. Rakesh Mehta, a businessman from South Delhi, makes it a point to buy a plum cake every December. “I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas,” he says. “But over the years, this cake has become part of the season for my family. We cut it on Christmas Eve.”
In all, Maxims sells close to 2,000 kilograms of egg-based rum plum cake and around 1,500 kilograms of eggless, non-rum fruit cake during the season. The cakes are prepared three to four months in advance and stocked well into January, when demand finally tapers off. Among recent buyers was beauty entrepreneur Shahnaz Husain, founder of the Shahnaz Husain Group, who placed a bulk order earlier this month.
A few kilometres away, in Defence Colony, Christmas unfolds at a slower, more familiar pace.
Customer squeeze
At Defence Bakery, the season announces itself the moment you step in. Christmas trees flank the entrance, festoons line the walls, and racks of dark, glossy plum cakes dominate the counter. The space is tight and constantly in motion — customers collecting pre-orders, others squeezing in last-minute purchases, staff calling out names over the din.
In the same queue, SUV-driving residents stand alongside delivery riders, all inching forward with claim slips in hand. For many here, this counter - not the calendar - marks the real beginning of the festive season.
Founded in 1962 by the Dhingra family, Defence Bakery has become a neighbourhood institution, sustained by decades of loyalty and memory. “This is our peak season,” says Bogusia Dhingra, PR and Marketing head at Defence Bakery.
“While ingredients are still selected at Old Delhi’s Khari Baoli, improved access now allows direct sourcing from farmers as well. The focus remains on quality, with many of the spices coming from southern India,"she says.
The soaking of the fruits and nuts starts in July. baking happens from November, when customers slowly starts thinking about festival to reach it's peak in December.
“Our focus is to keep the taste familiar,” Dhingra says. “Customers often tell us our cakes take them back to grandparents’ homes, childhood Christmases, and family tables filled with warmth. Many now buy the same cakes their parents once did, passing on not just tradition but memories carried through taste and aroma.”
The star cake
Cupcakes, gingerbread and fruit cakes sell steadily through December, but the plum cake remains the star. The recipe comes from the family kitchen and has been passed down through generations, along with the sweet masala, which is the real family secret behind the plum cake.”
Demand rises sharply from the first week of the month, with advance orders filling up quickly. Much of the crowd comes from families long settled in Defence Colony.
“I’ve tried plum cakes from many places,” says Manika, a regular customer collecting a pre-ordered cake. “But Defence Bakery gets it right. The balance is perfect, the rum, the fruit, the texture. It tastes like Christmas.”
Plum variations
Across the Yamuna, in Noida, the festive rush takes on a different rhythm. At Theos Bakery, one of the brand’s flagship outlets, Christmas is quieter but no less deliberate. The counters are busy without being chaotic, shelves lined with cakes and cookies as customers arrive to pick up pre-booked orders. The display is anchored by three versions of the plum cake — a traditional British plum cake with egg, an eggless traditional variant, and an eggless, alcohol-free version. The first two are soaked in rum, while the third relies on orange juice for depth and moisture.
Preparation here begins nearly a year in advance. Dry fruits and raisins are soaked and aged at the bakery’s factory in Sector 18, a process that long-time Noida residents say keeps them returning every December. Orders begin coming in from early December, with gingerbread, plum cakes and Russian macarons among the most popular items, says Naveen Sharma, the store’s manager. Unlike Delhi’s older neighbourhood bakeries , where Christmas spills onto the pavement in noisy queues, Noida’s festive demand is shaped by pre-orders, office gifting and a suburban calm. The rush is less visible, but just as ritualised.
Across Delhi–NCR, whether in crowded Delhi lanes or quieter Noida outlets, the story is therefore the same. Before the carols begin and before midnight mass, Christmas, for many, starts with the weight of a plum cake box in hand.
This article is written by S. Keerthivas
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