BackHunger Games | Soak it up
This blog is a reminder to start your Christmas cake soak if you haven't already
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Supriya Kalbag’s Christmas cakes are already in the oven, she says. “It’s not too early, it is just right," she says as she prepares over 70 one kg cakes of her popular Christmas cake that was sold out even as her dry fruits were soaking in a healthy concoction of rum and brandy.
Kalbag’s secret recipe, she says, is 100 years old and might even have its origins in the royal kitchen of Britain. “I got the recipe from a dog-eared book from a lady next door when I lived in London 20 years ago," says Kalbag, adding that she never could confirm the authenticity of the royal kitchen origins claim. Kalbag has been baking using the recipe for 20 years now, and went commercial on popular demand this year. “A friend posted the availability on a food group on Facebook in the first week of November and I was booked for 70kg before I knew it," she says. She won’t share the full recipe with us but does part with a few tips.
“It’s an extremely rich recipe that has 1300g of fruits (a good mix of dried fruits) with 200g of flour. So essentially the flour is there just to hold to the fruit together," she says. She uses rum and brandy in her soak and to make the fruit mix rich she adds molasses and dates which soak in rum and brandy for three months. Yes, three months. She started her soak in August this year. Kalbag’s soaking doesn’t end with baking. She matures her baked cake with more rum and brandy through half of November and until Christmas.
When we followed the Christmas cake mania with a story in 2011 (Christmas baking | Cake rush), author of seven Anglo-Indian cook books, Bridget White Kumar, let us in on her secret that even if you have not started soaking quite as early August, make sure to add dates to your fruit mix because they add colour to the cake. Find Kumar’s recipe in the story.
While Kalbag’s cakes for the year (priced at ₹ 1200 per kg) are all sold out you can log on to her Facebook page to order her Bourbon Sauce made from cream, caramel and bourbon which she serves with her cake at ₹ 150 for a 200ml jar.
What is your Christmas fruit cake secret? Do share it with us in the spirit of Christmas.
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