Here are the two Christmas cakes with the icing. One has royal icing and the other fondant. I wanted to do a more ambitious decorating job, but I did not have the things I needed to do so.
The royal icing one, that's the plain one on the right, has been served. It is excellent. Success.
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| Father Christmas looking a bit like Saturn here |
Today is the Winter Solstice. This is the astronomical first day of Winter and it is the shortest day of the year, in the Northern Hemisphere. The Winter Solstice has been celebrated and venerated for many thousands of years.
On the winter's solstice the sun is low in the sky. The sun's path begins northward again and will reach the most northerly point on the summer solstice. If you step out at noon today your shadow will be the longest of the year.
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| Saturnalia Holly and Candle |
Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Hellenic, etc., people all celebrated the Winter Solstice. Due to the Roman conquest of most of western Europe the Roman Winter Solstice traditions survived in Britain and in much of Europe. In the Roman world the Winter Solstice festival was Saturnalia. Many of the traditions of Saturnalia have endured and have been assimilated into our own Christmas customs.
The giving of gifts, decorating homes with evergreen boughs, ivy and holly. Candles were given as gifts and used to celebrate the season.
Saturnalia is named after the god Saturn. The etymology of Saturn is from the Proto Indo European word sewH(r) which means 'seed, bring forth.' Saturn is connected to agriculture, and he is often conflated with the Greek Chronos. The two entities come from a single Indo-European spiritual cosmology concept. While it is a different topic, there is a link between the Spirit of Christmas, or Father Christmas, and the traditions and rituals from Saturnalia.
During Saturnalia a man was selected to portray Saturn. He was the king of Saturnalia and he encouraged the activities and brought seasonal cheer to the people. He is remarkably like our Father Christmas.
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| The proxy for Saturn at the festival |
During Saturnalia people would enthusiastically proclaim Io Saturnalia to each other. Even in medieval times Io Saturnalia was a common greeting at Christmas time.
Saturnalia included the serving of roast pork, which was the traditional sacrifice to the god Saturn. The festival ran from 17 to 23 December. On 22 of December gifts were given. Common gifts included small figurines called sigillaria, combs, hats, lyres, hunting knives, oil lamps, candles, perfumes, wine cups, spoons, writing tablets, dice and other gaming pieces, etc. There were also the Saturnalia treats such as cake. The Saturnalia cake included nuts and fruit and that tradition also has survived in the form of our Christmas Cake.
By the late 4th century, the Christian churches extended their control over Europe and they chose the date of 25 December as their Christmas. This allowed them to incorporate the celebration of Christ's birth with the still popular Saturnalia and other pagan festivals around Europe. It was a clever bit of marketing you might say, and the old traditional pagan Winter Solstice festivals were now linked to the Christian holiday.
The decorating of homes with winter greenery, lighting of candles, the eating and drinking together, and giving and receiving gifts, are all traditions we still carry out.
So, a Wonderful Winter Solstice, a Merry Christmas, and also Io Saturnalia, to you all.
© Barry R McCain 2021
The McCain Christmas Cake... an update, the marzipan tops put on.
Two photos of my work this morning. I made the marzipan and placed it on the now cured fruit cake. I had never made marzipan, nor had I ever placed it on a cake. The first one a little ragged, but still nice looking. The second one nice and neat as I learned from the first one. I am satisfied with them.
I had a wee taste of the marzipan and it is excellent. I made it from fine ground almonds, powdered sugar (i.e. icing sugar), egg whites (pasteurized), almond extract, and a small amount of vanilla extract. The marzipan was easy to make in fact. The two cakes will be iced with royal icing in a couple days, with some seasonal decoration a top.
© Barry R McCain 2021
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| A Christmas Cake From Several Years Ago |
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| The ingredients prior to mixing |
The next day I sat out the eggs, butter, and brown sugar, as I like to work with them at room temperature.
I cream the butter and sugar well, then add the eggs one at a time. I then fold in the fruit, raisin, and nuts.
I add the spices to the flour along with a pinch of salt. I then fold in the flour to the well mixed butter, sugar, and eggs. This makes a fairly thick batter. If you feel the batter is too thick, just add some Irish whiskey to it.
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| The batter |
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| Work area, with my notes and Springform pan |
I then put the batter in the pan, smooth it down and make it even. Then I put more parchment paper around the outside of the pan (don't need to grease this of course) so that it is several inches above the top of the springform pan and I tie a piece of twine around this to hold it there.
I place this in the oven. The cooking temperature is 275 Fahrenheit. Depending on your oven, the cake will cook for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. You test it by sticking a wooden toothpick in it to see if it comes out clean. You should be able to tell if it is done just by looking at the cake.
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| Ready to go into the Oven |
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| The Cake done and cooling |
Let it cool a bit, then remove all the parchment paper. Carefully, flip the cake so the bottom is upright. I use a wooden chopstick to poke a good ten holes into the cake, I then do the first feeding, i.e. add about a 1/2 cup of whiskey. I then wrap the cake in parchment paper and tinfoil and place it in a cake carrier or cake serving dish, the type with a top on it.
You can feed the cake each week, or more if you like. This makes for a moist cake and a wonderful flavour.
The two cakes I recently made are now being seasoned, i.e. fed whiskey. I will not decorate them until the week of Christmas. Putting icing on this type of Christmas Cake is optional. It is fine to leave it as is, but this year I wanted to do something special. One cake will have a marzipan and royal icing top, the other cake will have a marzipan and fondant top. I will update this blog post with photos of the decorated cakes.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups of fruit; I used diced orange peel and apricots on one cake and diced orange peel, apricots, and dried figs on the other. I used the pre diced orange peel you get from your grocery store.
1 1/2 cups of raisins and or currants.
1 cup of blanched slivered almonds.
zest of an Orange and zest of a Lemon and the juice of each.
add whiskey and let soak over night.
2 1/8 cups of all purpose flour, sifted.
1 cup of almond flour, sifted.
Salt, a healthy pinch
Spices... All Spice, Nutmeg, ground Cloves, Ginger, Cinnamon, and Mace. I used at least a heaping teaspoon of each. Probably more of the All Spice, Nutmeg, and Ginger. I did not use as much Cinnamon as it can drown out the other spices I feel.
5 eggs
2 sticks of butter, use Kerrygold if you have it.
1 cup of Brown Sugar, some recipes use more than this, more like 1 and 1/4 cup, but I feel like this is too much.
Irish Whiskey as needed
The history of the Christmas Cake is interesting. First, there is a lot of speculation and theories on the internet and in print on this subject. I will offer a short history here. First of all, the tradition of a cake presentation for the Winter Solstice is old. A cake was done for Saturnalia in ancient Rome. This festival celebrated the Winter Solstice and was dedicated to the god Saturn (i.e. Cronos). The cake was a fruit and nut cake, probably much like the Italian Pan Forte. A bean was baked into the cake and who ever received the piece with the bean was pronounced Lord of the festivities. He took the place of Saturn that is to say. Over the years Saturnalia morphed into Christmas, but the Saturnalia Cake, or now the Christmas Cake, tradition endured and continued.
This tradition is related to other 'cakes' that are also called a King Cake and a 12th Night Cake. The Christmas Cake, 12th Night Cake, and King Cake, while different in function these days, do share a common origin. The Saturnalia Cake lived on and was given a Christian context. By the 1500s, well to do folk in the Isles were producing a cake much like our modern Christmas Cake, a dense cake, with fruit, raisins, nuts, etc., and was often topped with a marzipan layer and icing. During Victorian times the Christmas Cake became the institution it is today.
Merry Christmas and Io Saturnalia and enjoy your Christmas Cake this year.
© Barry R McCain 2021
