During the holiday season I live in dread fear of that most hated confection: the fruitcake. Sure, its haters are many—it’s too dry, it’s too wet, the fruits are cloying, it sits like a brick in the belly. But I tremble alone, because my fear of fruitcake is not based on aversion but a long, impassioned, and complicated adoration of the confection. Or, rather, of one particular version: Black Cake.
Black Cake—or Caribbean fruitcake—is a tradition in the English speaking West Indian islands like Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada and my father’s home of Trinidad & Tobago. It is a rich butter-based cake loaded with dried fruit soaked in rum and cherry brandy for weeks, or sometimes months. To give it its name, the batter is blackened with burnt sugar syrup, which gives it a hint of bitter complexity to balance its rich sweetness.
My love-hate relationship with Black Cake started in childhood, when one would arrive at our home in New York every December from my cousin in Tobago. Wrapped in foil and ensconced in an old cookie tin, even after three weeks in a ship’s hold it remained pristine from stewing in its alcoholic juices. The texture was both cake like and pudding like, akin to a perfect brownie, melting on the tongue while enveloping my nose in a heady aroma. My father placed the cake high on top of the refrigerator to discourage my frenzied plucking at the cake, like an intoxicated bird.
My father was a prodigious baker and, occasionally, he would try to make his own Black Cake, since his niece’s offering was never quite enough to fill our family yen. But he could never get Black Cake right. It was too light, too dense, not dark enough, not enough fruit, too much fruit, too rummy, not quite rummy enough. He died without perfecting it.
That is when my quest began. For years I coaxed Black Cake recipes from West Indian ladies—each of whom said their sisters’ method was wrong. I’d taste so many Black Cakes each Christmas I’d worry family members would start to plan an intervention. My cousin stopped sending the cake when my father died, and my pleas earned me a “recipe” that was no more than a jumble of verbal ingredients and method tossed off casually and without precision. For her, Black Cake making was second nature, not something to discuss. I manically practiced, honing in on a recipe I was sure would be it, but ended up discarding hundred of dollars of ingredients at a time. It was only after I went to culinary school that training, plus taste memory, allowed me to develop a version that I liked.
And, to my eventual chagrin, everyone else liked it too. So much so that as the years passed I found myself making more and more Black Cakes for friends and family. Two years ago the list was up to about 50 cakes—and a thousand dollars in ingredients and postage.
Black Cake became both my albatross and my identity, because even as my reputation as a Black Cake maker grew, so too did the voices of the haters. I don’t mean just the usual anti-fruitcake folks, but there were also, to my surprise, plenty of fellow West Indians who deemed my cake unworthy. For some, my method was too based on formal culinary technique (read: “Uppity”). There were the typical island-to-island rivalries, too and, for yet others, I was not Caribbean to make a “real” Black Cake, enough since I was born in New York City, accent-less and of indeterminate ethnic origin.
Every time I made a Black Cake it became fraught: My Black Cake was a cake of traitors. There were those who felt that my family’s American Caribbean Christmas traditions could not compare those who remained in the Caribbean. Others saw the cake as an exemplar of the color divide among West Indians—Afro-Caribbeans made Black Cake, Indo-Caribbeans, historically proscribed against consuming liquor, did not. The latter is hardly a modern truth, but nonetheless, who did my mixed-race self think I was claiming to “master” Black Cake?
My Black Cake has become my sword in the battle for self. I set myself up to be, like my cake, the poster child for cross-culturation mixed with a healthy dose of creativity. So, I found myself baiting the naysayers with explosive comments about Black Cake’s origins—that it is not, as widely assumed, a variation on English plum pudding, but rather an adaptation of Irish Christmas cake, brought to the Caribbean by indentured servants. So, even as I set the fruits to soak in the traditional way—months ahead of time—I plotted to create a quick-soak method (below) knowing it would earn more fury… and that it would be utterly delicious.
So, my peace made, there is still another, opposite problem: the issue of the 50 cakes. Last year, in an effort to pare down the weeks of baking and considerable cost, I announced I would not be making any Black Cakes. The bribes started rolling in: offers of dinners, free babysitting, and hand-made gifts. Unexpected visitors arriving at odd times hoping to catch me at the oven or for a cup of tea and a slice of the family’s cake “if I could spare some.”
I wound up giving in and making 20 cakes last year just to preserve friendships and family bonds, but this year I’m putting my foot down. There will only be five cakes: for family members and very close friends. Well, maybe six. Possibly seven. But that’s it. No more.
Of course, you can bake one for yourself.
Black Cake
Reprinted with permission from Sweet Hands: Island Cooking from Trinidad & Tobago. (Hippocrene 2006, 2010)
Makes two 9" cakes
For the fruit
1 cup raisins
1 cup currants
1 cup prunes, pitted
3 tablespoons mixed citrus peel, minced
1 cup candied cherries
1½ cup cherry brandy or cherry wine
1½ cup dark rum, such as Old Oak
½ cinnamon stick
1 star anise pod
½ vanilla bean
For the cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup dark brown sugar
6 eggs
½ teaspoon mixed essence*
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon burnt sugar syrup**
For the basting liquid
¼ cup dark rum
¼ cup cherry brandy
2 tablespoons sherry
1. In a large saucepan, combine raisins, currants, pitted prunes, citrus peel, and candied cherries in a large saucepan with cherry brandy and rum. Add the cinnamon stick and star anise pod. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise with a sharp paring knife and scrape out the seeds and add to the fruit mixture along with the pod. Place saucepan over medium heat and bring the mixture to a slow simmer. Turn the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes, keeping an eye on the pot to make sure the liquid doesn’t evaporate below the level of the fruits. (Top it off with a little water if it does.) After 20 minutes, cover the pot and remove from heat. Allow to cool completely and set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 250°F and grease two 9-inch round cake pans.
3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.
4. Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the mixed essence and vanilla extract.
5. Remove the vanilla pod, cinnamon stick, and star anise pod from the soaked fruits. Using a slotted spoon, remove the cooked fruits from the saucepan, reserving liquid. Place in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to a coarse paste, using reserved liquid as needed to achieve the coarse paste. Add fruit paste to the batter and beat well.
6. Add the flour mixture ½ cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the burnt sugar syrup and mix well.
7. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and bake for 1½ hours or until a cake tester inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
8. Remove from the oven and cool for 20 minutes in the pan. Combine the rum, brandy, and sherry for basting, and evenly brush the cakes with this mixture, using it all. Allow the cakes to cool completely.
9. Remove cakes from the pans. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and then tinfoil. (Alternatively, a large zip top bag works well too.) You may also place the cakes in a tightly lidded container. Store in a cool, dry place for at least 1 day before eating. Black Cake can be stored for up to 3 months in the refrigerator. If doing so, rebaste with the basting mixture, about 2 tablespoons each of sherry, cherry brandy, and dark rum, once every 2 weeks.
* Mixed Essence is the substitution for tonka bean (unavailable in the United States). Mixed essence is available in West Indian markets or make your own with this recipe:
Faux Tonka Essence (Trinidadian Mixed Essence)
½ cinnamon stick
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon dark rum
¼ cup pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons almond extract
1 drop orange blossom water
1. Using a mortar and pestle, crush the cinnamon stick into small pieces about 1/3-inch long. Place the cinnamon in a small, sealable container with the grated nutmeg and the rum. Set aside for at least one week and up to two. Check the mixture every couple of days to ensure the rum is not evaporating. If necessary, add a bit more rum and reseal to reduce air flow.
2. Strain the rum mixture into a sealable, dark-colored glass jar and add the remaining ingredients. Seal and shake gently.
3. Store in a cool, dry place. Use in baked goods in place of vanilla.
** Commercially prepared burnt sugar syrup is available in West Indian markets. If you cannot find it, you can make your own by placing 4 tablespoons of dark brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of water in a pan over medium-low heat. Heat slowly, swirling the sugar in the pan until it starts to caramelize. Continue swirling until the sugar syrup becomes very dark brown—almost black. Add to batter as needed.
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