Jamila Hathiari Shikari

Some businesses begin in boardrooms. Others begin in kitchens — with a tray of brownies, a reliably happy friend on the receiving end, and a quiet realisation that this could be more than a hobby. Jammy’s Baking belongs firmly in the second category. Jamila Hathiari Shikari’s home-baking project, documented lovingly on Instagram at @jammys_baking, is the kind of small, personal food brand that India’s dessert scene has come to rely on — the home baker who makes one more carefully than a factory ever could.

Her signature — and the item that shows up most often in her reels — is a deeply fudgy Nutella brownie that looks, improbably, even better in person than on camera. It’s the kind of brownie built for birthdays, for last-minute team gifts, for the end of a long week. Fresh to order, wrapped with care, and delivered with the unmistakable sincerity that comes from someone who is baking because she actually loves it. Customers who find Jammy’s Baking tend to become repeat customers — one order turns into Diwali, another into an anniversary, another into a Wednesday that needed a little help.

What makes home-baking businesses like Jamila’s matter is exactly what mass-market bakeries can’t replicate: the freshness, the flexibility, the willingness to tailor an order to a specific niece or neighbour. A home baker does not need to push shelf life. She doesn’t need to use preservatives to survive a week of transit. She just needs the order to be right on the day it’s eaten. And that constraint — quietly, relentlessly — keeps the quality high.

In a food culture increasingly dominated by cloud kitchens and aggregators, Jamila’s small, personal practice is a reminder that some of the best dessert in any city is being made right now in a home oven a few streets away. If you’re in her neighbourhood and in the mood for a brownie that will absolutely ruin commercial brownies for you, her Instagram page is the door to knock on.