Choosing a loaf: which bread for which table
Country, seeded, ragi and rye, or a baguette: what each is good for, from breakfast toast to a fish curry.
Why a croissant from us costs ₹140
Three days, 27 layers, a lot of butter and a baker’s whole morning: what goes into the price.
People sometimes ask why our croissant costs ₹140 when the supermarket sells one for ₹50. The short answer is butter and time, and it is worth showing the sums.
Each croissant uses about 28 g of cultured butter, which we buy in 10 kg blocks at around ₹780 a kilo. That is ₹22 of butter before the flour, milk, sugar and the egg wash. The flour is stone-milled and costs more than refined maida. Ingredients come to roughly ₹38 a croissant.
Then the time. The dough is mixed on the first day and rests overnight. On the second, a baker laminates it by hand: three folds, each followed by an hour in the cold room, because the butter must stay firm. On the third morning it is cut, shaped, proofed for two and a half hours in a warm cabinet and baked. One baker can make about 160 croissants in a session, and that session takes most of a day spread over three.
Add the electricity for the cold room and the oven, which in our climate runs hard, the paper box, rent in White Town and a fair wage for four bakers, and the cost of a croissant lands at about ₹105. We sell it for ₹140. We would rather bake fewer at that price than make a cheaper one with margarine.
