Egg-static rush at bakeries for Easter: Hot cross buns, other goodies selling like hot cakes
Telegraph | 18 April 2025
The city loves its tradition and Easter eggs.
Ahead of Easter on Sunday, bakeries and confectioneries are bustling with people and energy.
The simnel cake, marzipan Easter eggs, bunny eggs, chick-iced cookies and hot cross buns — available only at this time of year — are quickly selling out.
Doreen La’Porte took her daughters — Cadence, 9 and Caiclyn, 6 — to Saldanha Bakery to choose their Easter eggs.
Nougat Easter eggs are the girls’ favourite.
“The Easter eggs are available only now, and it’s a tradition to go and buy them. I want my children to stay connected with the tradition,” said La’Porte, a teacher at a school in Calcutta.
“The Easter egg symbolises the resurrection of Jesus Christ and a new life. When I was growing up, my grandmother would boil eggs. Each one would have a number with a message. We would pick one up. A day before Easter, I make my daughters colour the eggs,” said La’Porte.
Saldanha has prepared “a family-sized” marzipan Easter egg that the entire family can break and have together.
Inside are nuts, chocolates and much more.
“It is a thing about Calcutta that we still follow these old traditions of going to a bakery. Even if you are not celebrating it because of your religion, you still follow the trend of doing these traditional things like buying hot cross buns for your family or Easter eggs for your kids,” said Lovey Kapur, owner of Kookie Jar.
“In many other cities, people are not even aware of it.”
The cookies and eggs look resplendent. “The spring colours and a new life are the inspiration behind the Easter items,” said Kapur.
Ahead of Good Friday, hot cross buns were selling like hot cakes, Kapur said.
Sales are expected to reach a peak by Thursday evening and Friday morning, when many have hot cross buns to break their fast on GoodFriday. Easter-egg sales are likely to reach a high point on Saturday.
Flurys started baking the Easter items 10 days in advance this year.
“Usually, we do it seven days in advance. But this year, we started on April 10. The response has been good, naturally, because none of these Easter items are available at any other time,” said Chiranjib Maity, manager, operations, Flurys.
The Park Street address had done up the outlet for Easter. “Even people coming for breakfast or dinner are picking up something for Easter,” said Maity.
At Saldanha, the orders began last weekend.
“Usually, on Good Friday, people break their fast with a bun and a cup of tea after they return from the service.But we also see non-Christians buying and placing orders for Easter,” said Debra Alexander, owner of Saldanha.
An eight-year-old, who lives off VIP Road, plans to go to a bakery with her father on Saturday.
“We see kids coming tothe bakery not just to buy Easter items, they are also inquisitive about Eastereggs. We tell them about the spring colours and new life,” said Alisha Alexander, the fourth-generation owner of Saldanha.