The joyful season of Christmas is almost here and the bakeries would soon be filled with rows of soft and delicious cakes, neatly packed in attractive boxes. In Kerala, the classic plum cake is a must to celebrate Christmas.
Meanwhile, hotels and bakeries are busy holding grand cake mixing ceremonies to ring in the festival season. Home bakers too hold such ceremonies to mark the beginning of the season when cakes are in high demand. Cake mixing is a special event when the chefs, employees and invited guests mix the dry fruits and nuts that will be added in the plum cakes. Raisins, dates, cherries, papaya, cashews, almonds, pistachios and other spices are mixed in fruit juices, wine and alcohol to prepare the perfect mix.
This mixture is then sealed in air tight containers. After forty days, these mixtures would be used to make the iconic plum cakes. Up to 350-400 gms of this dry fruit mixture could be used a 1 kg cake. Other ingredients too are measured based on this. Even though big bakeries mix dry fruits and nuts at their outlets or kitchens throughout the year, the cake mixing ceremony is celebrated as a special event to welcome the festival season.
The mix
Dry fruits and nuts are soaked in wine, fruit juices and alcohol to prepare the traditional plum cakes. Around 1000 kilos of dry fruits were used for the cake mixing ceremony held at the Rolling Pin bakery in Thellakam.
