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One of the trickiest questions to answer about Christmas revolves around food. Whether it’s about pinning down a spot for the perfect Christmas lunch or about cooking up a storm at home, December brings with it aplenty to choose from! While the cruel thing to do would be to let your navigate through a 101 delicious Christmas menus, we decided to let you in on a little trick—there’s a way to do both of the above without too much of a hassle. You want a grand Christmas feast without dealing with a huge crowd? Understandable, Christmas is all about family. Yet, you don’t want to be slaving away in front of a stove...which is why you need to call our favourite Bandra cafe as soon as you possibly can.
Tucked away in a discreet part of Hill Road, Mavs’ Cakes and Bakes has everything Christmas dreams are made of. If you’ve been following our food discoveries, you would know that Mavs’ also makes the best damn chocolate cake in the city which is why we trust them with the most glorious of holiday feasts that is Christmas. For Christmas, Mavs’ sticks to tradition and family; think everything from a Full Roast Turkey to your very own Gingerbread House. Mavourneen Peters (a.k.a. Mavs) the person behind these delicious creations personally took us through her meticulously curated Christmas menu.
As it does at Homegrown—sugar comes before everything else—our guide to their Christmas Menu will begin with what appeals to the inner sweet tooth within us all. Mulled Wine Jelly Sweets (everything about this is home-made), Toasted Coconut Marshmallows, Cheddar Cheese Apple Pie, and Baked Pears with Wine are the kind of Christmas goodies you’d want to wake up to on December 25.
For those of you wanting to relive a bit of childhood again, grab some of Mavs’ Cinnamon Flavoured Gingerbread House that you can also decorate with your own bucket of buttercream. While Christmas cake is meant to be fruit cake, a new tradition can always make its way to the table—more so if it comes in the form of their Ultimate Chocolate Cake (dense chocolate cake accompanied with layers and layers of rich chocolate ganache) topped with a completely edible marshmallow-flavoured fondant Santa Claus pulled along by his reindeer!
However, for those who do prefer it traditional, fret not. Mavs says the favourite dessert on the menu is the English Fruit Cake. Don’t be fooled by its modest name though, this is quite the wicked one. “We do our English Fruit cake like nobody else in the city,” she says. “First, we boil the fruits with rum and leave them to soak in it for at least two to three days. Then we bake the cake with the rum-soaked fruits and once it’s out of the oven, the cake is dunked with more rum. This process of soaking the cake in rum day after day continues till you take the cake home for Christmas,” she continues. If you loved the sound of this then you should know that their Rum Balls, Sticky-Toffee Pudding and traditional Christmas Pudding are made in an equally boozy style.
Christmas at Mavs’ is not all sugar and no spice though; her meaty roasts, bakes and sides are as indulgent as her desserts. While Mavs’ does the traditional roast turkey and chicken, what’s new on the menu this year is the Suckling Pig with Walnut and Bread Stuffing—a tough one to find even in this city’s numerous Christmas menus. Her Beef Roast with Yorkshire Pudding is another English treat that is difficult to find, even on the never-ending roster of Swiggy. Their Slow Roasted Pork is what sells the fastest though!
“After being smoked, the pork is cooked for eight hours. The meat is almost falling apart when it comes out and then we stuff it with marmalade,” explains Mavs’ as she talks about the intricate Irish recipe passed down to her from her mum. Her roasts and smoked hams are more than just glazed over with honey. Her very own spicy chutneys made from local seasonal fruits like cranberry, pomegranate, figs and plums along with maple syrup also make it to the dressing.
All of these food coma inducing meaty delights can be paired with Mavs’ wide range of gravies, like the sorpotel or the beef roulade which are inspired by traditional Goan flavours. If your Christmas party is going to be a large and hungry one, then Mavs’ also has some special baked delights. The English Apple and Pork rolls (lip-smacking buttery treats) and the Bacon Explosion; their signature dish (bacon stuffed in a spicy sausage, wrapped in more bacon and then baked in their homemade BBQ sauce) have to be on your Christmas table. Though what Mavs herself really loves from the baked goods is her choice for the non-red meat eaters: Irish Potato Cakes with Smoked Salmon. “It’s mashed and grated potato mixed together with a few pieces of onion which is then fried in butter. The smoked salmon is then placed with green chilies and chives on it. It’s a bit different for a Christmas dish but none the less delicious.”
While going through the menu there is hardly a single dish that doesn’t evoke voluntary salivation but few know that creating them isn’t all fun and frolic. Mavs prepares this special menu each year a month before Christmas day while many of the dishes on the menu become part of the cafe’s weekend treats through the year as a way to understand what works for people and what doesn’t. Over the past three years the orders from the Christmas menu for Mavs’ have only doubled in quantity and Mavs and her staff often find themselves working from dawn till late evening on Christmas day to finish all the orders. “It’s worth all the hard work,” says Mavs. “I put in a lot of love in my cooking so when customers tell me that Christmas lunch has been a success because of my food, it’s truly rewarding!”
To view Mavs’ Christmas menu, click here. To place your order call them before December 20th on 9819873959.
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Features image by Suhani Lakhotia for Homegrown
