Linda Raedisch The Secret history of Christmas baking
Llewellyn Books, 2023
chapter 10
"Stirring Things Up"
Homemade fruitcake, which was originally
a wedding and special occasion cake,
beat gingerbread to the American
Christmas table by at least a hundred years. . .
The giant fruitcake or "great cake" with
which Martha Washington welcomed her
husband home for Christmas 1797 was
more like a raisin cake than what we
think of as a fruitcake today. The only
fruits in it were dried currants, which
may have been all Martha could get
at the time. The idea of a heavier cake
in which roughly chopped fruits and
nuts took the lead was reintroduced to
America by later immigrants from Ireland,
where fruitcake baking is begun a month
or more before 12/25. Some Irish cottages
even have a special niche in an outside wall
where the brandy-anointed cake can be
kept while it matures. The last step
before 12/25 is to cover the cake,
like Queen Victoria's wedding cake,
in marzipan and royal icing.
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