Christmas
Cake — England
What is most
commonly known as Christmas cake in most
parts of the world is a variant of the
English original. Essentially, it’s a
plum/fruitcake, calling for candied or
dried fruit, nuts, spices, and a healthy
tot of warming spirits such as brandy,
rum, wine or cognac. The British of
course love to confuse the non-British
and may often refer to their cake as
“pudding” — but this is the real deal. A
marzipan or fondant layer completes the
English Christmas cake. Its delectable
present-day avatar, however, descends
from a less delicious origin. Plum
pudding evolved out of “plum
porridge/pottage” — beef boiled in a
little water and a lot of wine,
flavoured with onions and herbs, and
thickened with bread.
Bolo
Rei — Portugal
The Portuguese
Bolo Rei is delightful, and not just for
its appearance or taste. A custom
associated with this Christmas cake is
the hiding of a fava bean; the person
who finds the bean in the slice served
to them, must pay for the cake the next
year. Bolo Rei is a bundt cake, meaning
it is baked in a ring mould. When it is
ready to serve, it resembles a crown
adorned with crystallised fruit.
Rich
Cake — Sri Lanka
Rich Cake,
also known more simply as Sri Lankan
Christmas Cake, is inspired by its
English namesake, but introduces several
modifications of its own. For one, the
cake is baked with semolina, not all
purpose flour. For another, local spices
and spirits like arrack replace their
more Anglicised counterparts. In some
cases, treacle may be added to the
batter. Sugar, butter, pumpkin preserve,
cashews, eggs (a *lot* of eggs!),
essences, honey, mixed fruit, jam,
golden syrup feature prominently on most
ingredients lists, although individual
cooks tend to innovate even with these.
The end result, however, is the same: a
dense fruitcake that instantly makes the
reason for its "rich" moniker
evident.
Makowiec
— Poland
This Polish
Christmas pastry can be described as a
roulade: Sweet bread is lavishly spread
with a bittersweet poppy seed
paste/filling, then rolled into a tight
cylinder. Some cooks may replace the
poppy seed filling with a paste made out
of dried nuts instead, typically walnut
or chestnut.
Crema
de Fruta —
Philippines
A layered
Christmas cake unlike any other, the
Philippines’ crema de fruta (Spanish:
"fruit cream") comprises a base layer of
sponge cake, followed by custard and
cream, fresh fruits, and gelatin. Jam,
sago and condensed milk are all popular
crema de fruta accompaniments.
Pio
Quinto — Nicaragua
The
Nicaraguans aren’t playing any games
when it comes from their Christmas
dessert. The Pio Quinto comes soaked in
rum, with a layer of custard on top, and
a fine dusting of cinnamon. It’s a
boozy, Christmassy treat that’ll put the
right spin on your celebrations.
Black
Cake — Jamaica
While
associated with Jamaica, Black Cake is
in fact widely consumed in other parts
of the Caribbean as well. It is a
rum-soaked fruitcake that would almost
be mistaken for chocolate cake at first
glance — so deep and intense is its
colour. It also has a slightly fudgy
appearance. (Purists insist the cake
should have a pudding-like — ahem! —
consistency.) The colour and its dense
texture, however, come from the copious
quantities of dried, macerated fruits
(prunes, currants, raisins, glaced
cherries soaked in red wine and dark
rum) added to the batter.
Kurisumasu
Keki — Japan
The Japanese
forego rich plum/fruitcakes for a
lighter, airier cake on Christmas. The
“Kurisumasu Keki” is a delicate sponge
cake loaded with white cream, plenty of
fresh strawberries, and (sometimes) a
marzipan finish. It is traditionally
eaten on Christmas Eve. The custom is
believed to have originated circa 1910,
in a Yokohama bakery.
Allahabadi
Cake — India
A fruitcake
made distinctly Indian through the use
of ingredients like Agra petha,
tutti-frutti, saunf and ghee, this
Christmas goodie sells like hot cakes
(!) in its home city of Allahabad.
Maida, eggs, sugar, marmalade, ginger
and a variety of dried fruits and nuts
(doused in rum) make this an unmissable
festive treat. Read more about it
here.
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Christmas
Desserts
Dundee
Cake — Scotland
Named for the
city in Scotland from which it
originates, the Dundee cake has one
vital ingredient, and it isn’t candied
fruit/peel, which its less spirited
Christmas cake cousins like to load
themselves with. No, for the Dundee
cake, it’s got to be fine Scotch whisky,
and lots of it. A few currants, sultanas
and raisins are allowed. Only ‘cause
it’s Christmas.
Yule
Log — France, Belgium, Switzerland,
Lebanon, Canada,
Vietnam
The Yule Log
or bûche de Noël comprises a kind of
sweet roulade made out of sponge cake
and iced liberally with chocolate
buttercream. A thin sheet cake is iced,
then rolled into a cylinder and iced
again to prepare the Yule Log. The name
refers to the cake’s appearance: it is
usually decorated to look like a real
log.
Stollen
— Germany
This
traditional German fruitcake is also
known as “Weihnachtsstollen” or
“Christstollen”. The stollen loaf is
more rustic in appearance than a
fruitcake. It’s perhaps fair to note
that “cake” is a bit of a misnomer;
stollen is actually a bread. With nuts,
spices, dried or candied fruit, covered
in sugar or marzipan, this is a properly
festive bread though..
Panettone
(also, Pandoro and Pandolce) —
Italy
Like the
stollen, Italy’s preferred Christmas
confection — the Panettone — is also
categorised as a bread rather than a
cake. But these are minor quibbles for a
divine flour, candied fruit and raisin
loaf. The dough goes through a curing
process similar to sourdough. But
Panettone isn’t the only thing Italians
eat around Christmas. There’s the lofty
Pandoro from Verona, and the decadent
Pandolce from Genoa, that add sweetness
and spice to Italians’ Christmas.
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