Know the History of your Favorite Christmas Cakes: Journey from a Simple Bread to a Delicacy!
Christmas doesn't seem to feel the same without this typical treat, whether you prefer the Christmas cake, or the just fruitcake. It appears on several dessert menus before. Christmas Day as a simple gift from your job, home, family and friends. Commonly served in many parts of the world during the holiday season, there are thousands and, if not millions of people who enjoy Christmas cake.
The story of Christmas cake is long, not only the cake but the whole history of its origin
What's so special about Christmas cakes:
If you're all loud about singing Christmas songs or celebrating this Christmas party with friends, those things just go hand in hand. It's particularly important when it comes to that special Christmas cake. Have you never stopped and wondered where all of that began with all the excitement surrounding your holiday? The Food History of Christmas cake.
But when did fruitcake become a popular Christmas pud?
Without this popular treat, Christmas doesn't seem to feel the same. With recipes that have been passed down with their own little twist for decades, Christmas cake takes on many types.
Looking deeper into the food history of Christmas cakes or the Twelfth Night Cake, the story began in Medieval England as an English tradition customary in our history, people ate porridge on Christmas Eve.
Eventually, to make it like a pudding, individuals began adding dried fruits and spices to the porridge.
Somewhere around the 14th to 15th century, European cakes were beginning to imitate more like our modern interpretation of cake, earlier ‘cakes’ being more like pieces of bread. These enriched bread were still popular, even in the late 17th century. Symbolic and holiday cakes were produced as sugar, spices and fruit became more abundant during the Medieval era.
During the times of the 16th century:
The use of oats was removed from the way of making cakes with the introduction of the 16th century, and people began to use butter, wheat flour and eggs as an ingredient.
As the 12th night's popularity steadily fell and Christmas celebrations gradually increased in the 1830s, the cake was eaten on or around Christmas Day. The Victorian bakers began decorating the cakes with snow-scenes from winter with this change. It was historically believed in the Victorian period that it was not fortunate to cut the cake on Christmas Eve before dawn.
Families of men who work in British colonies in Australia, America, Canada and other parts of the world have started baking their cakes in advance for weeks or months and sending them along with wine and Cadieux as part of a Christmas hamper. And that's how England had the first plum cake.
However, people made a similar cake using seasonal dried fruit and spices for Christmas. The exotic eastern spices brought by the Wise Men portrayed the spices. The "Christmas cake" became known as this cake.
The variations that came along the way:
There are several ways to make a cake, but this Christmas cake is just a variation of a traditional fruitcake of its own. A light crumbly cake with scotch whisky is very popular, also known as the Whisky Dundee, the traditional Scottish Christmas cake.
Apple cream cake is made from apples, other fruits, raisins, eggs, cream cheese, and whipped cream. The mincemeat cake is made with conventional mincemeat, flour, milk, etc, or vegetarian mincemeat. It can also be steamed as a Christmas pudding.
Other countries traditions:
In Japan, a frozen sponge cake with strawberries, chocolates are made as a Christmas cake. It was a term named 'Christmas cake' by women over the age of 25, meaning they are out of season since it is after December 25.
A yellow pound cake with nuts or the traditional British fruitcake is a Christmas cake in the Philippines. All cakes, a palm sugar syrup and water are soaked in brandy or rum. Water is normally applied to rosewater or orange flora.
Yule Log is the traditional French Christmas cake. They are light sponge cakes, coated with chocolate, coffee and Grand Marnier layer of buttercream.
Up next: History of Scotch: Take Time Travel to the Remarkable Journey of your Favourite Malt Whisky!
Final thoughts
Christmas cakes have been a blend of all the best things: dried fruit, exotic herbs, spirits of good age and time. Despite the numerous hands it had, the modifications in the treaties and the toppings, all of them reflect the Christmas cake.
This year's Christmas cake is part of this wonderful tradition, which got its part from its very own food history and started as a basic meat powder cooked in the fire and made the day a bit sweet. Taste its history when you bite into the cake of your fruit this Christmas, loving its sweet and rich taste.
Share with your friends the amazing history of the food you love
