Try India’s first Christmas cake from Mambally’s Royal Biscuit Factory in Kerala Premium

Discover the legacy of Mambally's Royal Biscuit Factory, home of India's first plum cake, dating back to 1880.

On the ground floor of the Harbour City Mall, around 210 metres away from the Old Bus Stand Junction in Thalassery, Kannur, is a dark green board with capital neon letters that spells out Mambally’s. Behind its glass door, biscuits and cakes are neatly arranged on a glass shelf jostling for space with boxes of plum cakes that whisper a legacy of more than a century.  

Believed to be India’s first bakery, Mambally’s Royal Biscuit Factory in Thalassery, established in 1880, is also reportedly the birthplace of the beloved plum cake, an assured presence on the dining table beside a glass of red wine at Christmas feasts.  

The history of Mambally’s Royal Biscuit Factory can be traced back to five generations when Thalassery-native Mambally Bapu was approached by a British merchant Murdoch Brown to bake a cake for Christmas in 1883. He gave Bapu a cake from England to taste, asking him to replicate it and also provided some ingredients such as dry fruits. Brown also suggested Bapu to soak the fruits in a French brandy.

Bapu had started his bakery on the main road opposite the Thalassery police station which moved to the Harbour City Mall a few years back. Following his training in Burma, he started the bakery which sold around 40 varieties of biscuits, buns and rusks initially.  

For preparing the cake, the baking doyen procured spices and replaced the brandy with local arrack made from cashew apples and bananas. He also had a blacksmith from Dharmadam, Thalassery, prepare a custom-made mould. As Murdoch returned to taste the cake, he was spellbound and called it one of the best he had ever eaten.  

This incident which eventually contributed to Thalassery being branded the City of Three C’s – Cricket, Cakes and Circuses – is so popular that there is even an Amar Chitra Katha comic about it.  

As years progressed, the Mambally family branched out to different parts of the State, continuing to be a notable presence in the baked good industry. “In Thiruvananthapuram, Santha bakery is well-reputed in the business. We have got Best Bakery in Kottayam and Modern Bakery in Kottayam and Kozhikode. Then we have a Cochin Bakery, which is spread across Kerala and Karnataka. There are multiple bakeries and each one has created a legacy for itself. But everything started from Thalassery,” says Renuka Bala, a fifth-generation member of the family who joined the business two years ago.