A taste of yore

A quaint bakery with a lingering charm, Shree Gururaya Bakers, located in Banashankari, is a favourite hangout of school students in the vicinity as well as a must-visit place for families in the area. Started in 1996 by father-son duo K Nagaraja Hathwar and K Gururaj Hathwar, the bakery prides itself in serving a variety of items fresh from the oven at very reasonable prices.

Though the place may be small, the specialities are many. Their vegetable and capsicum puffs are highly popular. Crisp, with just the right amount of filling, they are available for Rs 13 and Rs 15 respectively. Students, in particular, swear by their delicious honey cake, available at Rs 10 a slice. Savouries like the ‘bread toast’ (with an onion and carrot stuffing) and ‘aloo bun’ make for a good tea-time snack, again for a measly sum of Rs 10 each.

The ‘dilpasand’, a tutti fruity and dry coconut puff, is another fast-moving item. And a bite of their plain cake and plum cake is sure to transport one into the bygone era. 

The diverse bakery menu has several varieties of breads — milk, wheat, salt, ‘khara’ — all baked in-house. “Our breads are very soft and long lasting. The wheat bread contains less oil and fat and is ideal for diabetics,” says proprietor Gururaj. The buns also come in tasty variants like special, plain, masala and aloo while there are seven to eight varieties of biscuits that simply melt in your mouth.

“We started off as a simple bakery and added newer varieties of biscuits like ‘ragi khara’ and ‘ragi sweet’ as well as pastries along the way. Our most recent addition is the baked ‘nippat’,” he says.

The shop has a manufacturing unit inside with a rotary oven for baking breads, buns and biscuits, a deck oven for cakes and a spiral mixer for preparing the cake batter and bread/ bun dough.

 “Everything is made fresh on a daily basis and most of the shelves get cleared by 8 pm,” says Gururaj adding, “Some of our workers have been with us since the past 15 years and they are maintaining the same taste.”

He personally supervises the mixing of the dough and batter. And though their prices may be low compared to other bakeries, he emphasises that “we have never compromised on hygiene and the quality of raw materials and we also do not add any artificial flavours, colours or preservatives to the products.” Gururaj’s motto, he says, is ensuring the satisfaction of his customers.

For Dhiren Jain, who passed out of Sri Aurobindo Memorial School, a visit to the bakery is like a trip down memory lane. “The day we started getting pocket money, we began deciding what to eat here. There were no fast food joints around and we would often relish their honey cake and the veg puffs, one of the best I’ve had. By default, it was a ‘go-to place’ for us after school!”, he recollects.

Shree Gururaya Bakers is open from 7 am to 10 pm everyday and is located at no 434/A, 24th cross, 13th main, Sri Lakshmi Complex, Banashankari 2nd stage. For details, call 26919213.