Plum cakes are the icing on Christmas goodies

December 19, 2014 12:32 pm | Updated 12:32 pm IST

Photo: M. Periasamy

Photo: M. Periasamy

Christmas season sees demand for plum cakes shooting up every year and bakers and hotels in the city start preparing for it two or three months ahead.

The varieties of the Christmas fruit cake on the shelves are many and there are even customised cakes, including eggless or sugarless cakes, homemade cakes, etc.

For 52-year-old R. Kumaran, a baker for 35 years at Shri Balaaji and Co Bakery, Christmas season means baking the plum cake with almonds and fondant icing.

Started in 1958 by D.S. Shiva Shankar and his brothers S. Balakrishnan Lal and S. Sathyanarayan Lal, the bakery has been selling plum cakes since the time of inception. One of the brothers, Balakrishnan Lal, who passed away three months ago, learnt to make plum cakes from a baker who worked for an Englishman before joining the bakery.

The sons and grandsons of the brothers, who run the bakery now, said that while there is a certain amount of customising, the recipe is a family secret.

Mr. Shankar’s son S. Humesh (41) said that they have not made any changes in the base recipe. Improvising is done in the quality of ingredients and baking technology.

Mr. Kumaran recalls the days when the team at the bakery would have to manually mix the ingredients. Technology has made the preparation easier now. He said that volume of cakes baked everyday has increased about 20 times compared to the production in 1980 and made in lesser space. But, applying icing on cakes is still done manually.

For the rest of the year they bake a mere 50 kg a day, of which 10 per cent comprise plum cakes without icing. There are lesser number of takers for plum cakes with almonds and fondant icing for the rest of the year, for reasons unknown.

Daily cake production increases to 500 kg between December 1 and 24 and 30 per cent consist of plum cakes. Preparation of the ingredients to make plum cake begins about two months prior to the actual baking process.

At The Residency, preparations to make plum cakes and plum puddings starts by the end of August. About 500 kg dry fruits, including imported varieties are added, to make nearly 2,000 kg of plum cakes and puddings, says Chef S. Ashok Kumar.

It was in the early 1980s and the West Indies cricket team was staying at Taj Coromandel in Chennai to play a Test. Clive Lloyd, who was part of the team and had a box of plum pudding from the U.K., had later sent a recipe book to Mr. Ashok, who was a chef at the hotel, of traditional Christmas goodies.

“I took the recipe for the plum pudding from the book and improvised on it,” says Mr. Ashok. Initially, the demand for plum pudding was less here. Now, it is more than the sales of plum cakes at the hotel. Most of the purchase is for handing out gift during the season. Even overseas guests, who have stayed at the hotel during December, have tasted the pudding and taken packets home.

The sales start in the first week of December and goes on till the first week of January.

Apart from plum cakes and puddings, there is a demand for fresh cream cake for gifts, he adds.

And, there are many who make plum cakes at home during Christmas. Like forty-seven year old Sharmila Prince has been baking cakes for 27 years. She said that she baked her first Christmas cake in the year she got married, as her husband did not like those bought from shops. Though she bakes a variety of cakes throughout the year, it is always plum cakes for Christmas. 

“It (plum cake) is a traditional cake made for Christmas and my cakes are rich in fruits,” she says. She also bakes Christmas cakes for 15 to 20 friends and gifts it to them for the festival.

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