Eat Something Before Yuh Go!

The Christmas Black Cake Tradition

By Leslie Robertson-Toney

In Caribbean households, Christmas is not Christmas without black-cake. The Christmas season, is a time to soak fruit, buy liquor and gear up for weeks of eating and drinking. Other than getting presents, one of my fondest memories of Christmas was sneaking a bit of cake mix from the bowl (or bucket, as my grandmother made cakes for family at home and abroad). Nothing could beat a slice of black cake with a glass of sorrel or ginger beer, some nuts, and candy on the side. Any self respecting Caribbean household would have to suffer the “ole talk” of dozens of guests if they didn’t have some cake to serve when people came by.

West Indian fruit cake, or black-cake as it is commonly known, is a moist, delectable treasure of a cake with browning and minced dried fruit soaked in rum and “cherry brandy” – an inexpensive liqueur made by Caribbean distilleries seemingly for the principal use of drenching black-cake. After hours of creaming butter and sugar, whisking in eggs and folding flour and copious amounts of fruit, the cake is baked slowly until it’s molded together in an irresistible moist treat. As Godfrey Delarosa, co-owner of Under the Coconut Tree Café in Hyattsville, MD describes it, “a heart attack in the oven”.

Every black cake maker is an expert with his or her own special technique. My grandmother, Yvonne Robertson, a black cake master whose cake recipe, handed down by her mother was published in one of her grandchildren’s school’s cookbook, adds, “You have to add a pan of water to the over or the cake would dry out.” She no longer makes black cake since her eyesight is failing, but the recipe she used for years was one passed down by her mother. She adds, “But the Guardian [newspaper in Trinidad & Tobago] had published a really good one some years ago that I liked too, and of course, you have to make it and see if you follow the recipe or stop when you think it’s right.”

Delarosa, an award-winning baker who trained in culinary arts at NY City Technical College states that the cake is fairly simple, “People think you need to soak the fruit in a lot of liquor but they don’t realize most of that bakes off. What I do is put that on the cake,” says Delarosa. He says, his wife, Charmain Lovelace with whom he opened Under the Coconut Tree Café this past summer, first doubted when he told her about it, but was thoroughly convinced after he made the first one, “The trick is to make sure it has the right amount of liquor after,” relates Delarosa. “What you do is you boil the fruit and use it on the first day. (You) drain off the excess liquid, put a little browning and a capful of rum it until it’s moist.” This method of adding liquor after the cake is mixed seems to be a trend in local methods.

Jennifer Selman, co-owner of Crown Bakery, Restaurant and Catering has been supplying customers in the Washington Metropolitan Area with black cake since they first opened the business over 8 years ago. She explained that as a part of the West Indian tradition they feel an obligation to offer this Christmas delight. Selman explained that they create a marinade of sorts to which you add wine, cherry brandy, rum, raisins, prunes, and mixed fruit. The idea that you should always soak the fruit is not necessarily so, “We don’t do a whole lot of soaking. What we do is we marinate on the stove with the rum, and the fruit. So when you marinate it sucks all the alcohol together so you don’t have to soak it for months or a year like you used to.” She adds that they’ve had to modernize the traditional method to accommodate the business model, but it does not compromise the quality of the cake. As Selman continues, “The idea that if you didn’t soak fruits from the year before, assuming all of that is done, what would you do if someone orders a cake and that entire batch of fruit you’ve soaked is done what would you do?”

Both Washington, DC area businesses say they’ve taken recipes passed down by family members and adjusted to suit their needs and expertise they’ve gathered over the years. Delarosa says he learnt to make his black cake from his aunt, Joycelyn LaFoucade, and tweaked it as he saw fit over time. Selman says her brother, Wayne Dickenson, who is the Master Baker at Crown uses a variation on a recipe passed down by family members. She added that a lot of his baking is from the old time recipes passed on to him by their parents. Dickenson has also worked in Trinidad for many of the bakeries and he really has a grasp of all the traditional styles.

While Delarosa says that Under the Coconut Tree Café is only offering the cakes for the Christmas season, Selman says that Crown offers cakes year round, but, she notes that the highest demand, making up approximately 10% of their annual cake orders, is at Christmas time. Selman explains that black cake is a traditional choice for special occasions. She says, “A lot of people order for weddings; some people just want to go back to the traditional and ask for royal icing – especially if they order the black cake.” While Delarosa explained one of the reasons black cake is used in the Caribbean is because of the weather: it holds up properly in hot weather. That’s also why they use the royal icing instead of the butter cream to frost the cakes. Nowadays with the cake associated with tradition, Delarosa says customers may order a basic sponge cake or American yellow cake for a wedding and request a keepsake black cake for tradition.

And if any of our readers who want to ensure they have a bit of that traditional treat in their homes without the hassle of baking it themselves both bakeries report that they are able to supply these special cakes with two days notice and are still taking orders for the Christmas season. Selman says she has menus and an online order form on Crown’s website http://www.dccrownbakery.com. Delarosa says customers can find information on their offerings at http://underthecoconuttree.com/ or by calling the café. Their cakes are sold by the lb, 8 per lb, and the average size cake ordered is approximately 3lb. Crown’s cakes vary from $47 to $57 for a cake ranging from 8” to 11” in diameter. Both businesses offer a full range of other traditional Caribbean bakery fare including sweetbread, ponche de crème, sorrel, ginger beer, pies, cakes and pastries.

Black cake – Recipe provided by Godfrey Delarosa of Under the Coconut Tree Café

1 lb sugar
1lb flour
1lb butter
8 eggs
2 lbs fruit minced with rum and cherry brandy
Browning (burn sugar, amount optional depending on darkness preferred).
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp allspice
1 oz baking powder (2 tbsps)
2 caps of rum

Cream sugar and butter together until mixture gets light and fluffy.
Average weight of 1 large egg is 2 ounces – the recipe calls for 16 ounces of eggs (approximately 8 eggs). Add 1 at a time, scraping after each addition.
Then fold the flour in.
Once all flour is added fold your fruit in add the browning. The amount of browning used is optional and really depends on how dark you want your cake.
Bake an 8 inch cake which weight approx 3 lbs 2 hrs at 350 degrees. Check after 1.5 hours then check again. Because this is a moist cake the conventional method of piercing with a toothpick to see when it comes out clean won’t work. Test by touch: if it bounces back from the center it’s ready. When the cake has cooled slightly but is still warm take it out of the pan (optional) and pour liquor on it.

*Burnt sugar can be purchased in any Caribbean market – Godfrey Delarosa says he likes the "Blue Mountain" brand best.

Under The Coconut Tree Café 5124 Baltimore Ave Hyattsville, MD 20781 www.underthecoconuttree.com M-F 7:30 -9 and Sat 8 – 9 and Sun 9-4.

Crown Bakery, Restaurant and Catering 5329 Georgia Avenue NW, Washington DC 20011 (202) 291-3009 www.dccrownbakery.com M-TH 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM, Fri and Sat 11:00 – midnight.

(Leslie Robertson-Toney is a contributor to Island Vibes Magazine and writes about Caribbean culture and entertainment. For comments, please feel free to contact her at leslie@islandvibesmag.com.)