Fascinating Facts - Christmas Cake
- Christmas fruitcake is a type of dense, rich cake that is popular around Christmas time. The cake consists of a variety of dried or candied fruits, nuts, and spices and may be light or dark, crumbly-moist to sticky-wet, spongy to heavy and it is sometimes soaked in Cognac or other types of brandy.
- It is not a very well known fact that the Christmas cake started out as porridge
- Christmas cake is an English tradition that began as plum porridge. People ate the porridge on Christmas Eve, using it to line their stomachs after a day of fasting. Soon dried fruit, spices and honey were added to the porridge mixture, and eventually it turned into Christmas pudding.
- In the 16th century, oatmeal was removed from the original recipe, and butter, wheat flour and eggs were added. These ingredients helped hold the mixture together and in what resulted in a boiled plum cake.
- All Christmas cakes are made in advance. Many make them in November, keeping the cake upside down in an airtight container. A small amount of brandy, sherry or whisky is poured into holes in the cake every week until Christmas. This process is called “feeding” the cake.
- Christmas cakes are made many different ways, but generally they are variations on classic fruitcake.
- The Christmas cake is a Common Christmas gift.