Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
‘TIS the season to be jolly ...’ well it isn’t yet, considering we’ve barely put our Halloween masks and broomsticks back in the cupboard for another year, but that hasn’t stopped the Elite Resort and Spa, Bahrain from getting in the spirit of Christmas and preparing its annual festive treats.
Journalists recently gathered at the Muharraq location to ring in the start of the holiday festivities by mixing together traditional Christmas cake ingredients into a giant bowl, which will mature and marinate over the next month until it is ready to be made into a batch of cakes.
On the patio by the swimming pool, overlooking the calm autumn sea, we donned our obligatory large white hats without a care for our daft appearance, and armed ourselves with a wooden spoon and huge plastic blue gloves that would look more appropriate on Walter White than a journalist.
After recently honing my culinary craft with an intensive one-day course, I was confident of tackling a traditional treat. We’ve always been more of a Yule Log family but it’s good to expand your horizons!
On a large table were trays laid out with traditional Christmas cake filling, and each of us in attendance were asked to mix them all together with our spoons. However, the implement wasn’t quite big enough so we dug in down to our elbows and mixed the ingredients in harmony!
These included cashew nuts, almonds, dried prunes, dates, dried fruits, raisins, blackcurrants, cherries, cinnamon powder, honey and a hefty dose of seasonal beverages. After our trayful of filling was sufficiently jumbled up, we took turns adding to a huge white bowl which was stirred by Executive Chef Anthony Gomes before being carried away into the hotel’s kitchens.
Christmas cake is a type of fruitcake served at Christmas time in the UK and many Commonwealth countries. It may be light or dark, crumbly-moist to sticky-wet, spongy to heavy, leavened or unleavened, shaped round, square or oblong as whole cakes, fairy cakes, or petit fours, with marzipan, icing, glazing, dusting with icing sugar, or plain.
If a Christmas cake is covered in icing, it is usually decorated with models of houses, Christmas trees or even Santa. As with so many truly great things in life, good things come to those who wait and this festive delicacy is no different.
A good Christmas cake is left to age for at least a month before serving. Chef Anthony said: “We wanted to do this a little earlier this year to give the ingredients time to soak up the liquid and completely ingest the flavour.
To be a truly authentic cake, it needs room to breathe and develop naturally.” Anthony will be doing the hard graft in December, baking and decorating the cakes to be sent out to various media outlets for us to sample our own delights.
Unfortunately, my suggestion to uphold British tradition and drop a 100 fils coin in the mixture, with the person who finds it in their serving getting to keep the coin as a sign of good wealth for the year ahead, was nixed due to the potential damage it could cause to Editor Stan’s dentures.
