HIMANSHU GURU, OP
Mixing and baking a plum cake is part of Christmas festivities…
Come December, everybody eagerly waits for Christmas. While students look forward to school vacations, others plan parties with Santa Claus handing out gifts. Christmas is the time for mouth-watering plum cakes. Not only baking, even the tradition of cake mixing is a special occasion for devout Christians.
Cake mixing ceremony
“Among the Xmas traditions, the thrill of getting the ingredients and blending the condiments for the cake in a big wok is part of an exhilarating experience,” said Ajit Paul from Bolangir.
“In the early days, the cake mixing ceremony was a family affair. However, gradually hotels have made it convenient for the tradition to be celebrated on their premises, considering their guests to be family and including them in the ceremony. Now many hotels and restaurants make arrangements for this ceremony,” Paul added.
In Orissa
Christmas is a grand occasion in Orissa. Interestingly, it is not limited to Christians alone. People of other religions also enjoy the rich traditions of the festival. “I love greeting Santa Claus at the Christmas party and my daughter Dipti eagerly waits to receive a gift from Santa. We used to hide a gift under her pillow on Christmas Eve and she would think it was gifted by Santa Claus,” said Nalini Mohanty from Bhubaneswar.
Cake mixing in hotels
While most hotels in Bhubaneswar make Christmas a special occasion, lately a few of them have taken an additional step. They have started cake mixing celebrations. Sunday POST chatted with chefs and other staff of these hotels to know more about their Christmas plans.
“We have several plans to ring in Christmas in style. The cake mixing ceremony is the beginning of the celebrations. Regarded as a fun event that also has religious significance, there is a lot of work which goes into the process of preparing the Christmas cake,” said Sushant Mahapatra, General Manager of Pal Heights Mantra at Pahala in Bhubaneswar.
“A few days ago we celebrated the ‘cake mixing ceremony’ at the hotel. The chefs poured in liquor to the mixture of dry fruits placed in a big vat while the guests present on the occasion enjoyed the show. The contents kept in an air-tight vat will be opened on December 24 and used to prepare the Christmas cake.”
“We have prepared a mixture which can cater to around 500 people. We started the tradition this year and a similar mixture will be kept for a whole year to be opened on Christmas Eve next year,” he added.
Pradeepta Kumar Panda, the executive chef of the hotel, said, “Cake mixing is a Christian tradition that has been adopted by many hotels including ours. We have added about fifteen types of dry fruits including raisins, dry plums, dry apricots, cashew nuts, almonds and walnuts in the mixture, which also has candied ginger, tutti-frutti and glazed cherries. During the cake mixing ceremony in our hotel, the dry fruits and nuts are soaked with a concoction of Indian and imported alcohol including rum. This is stored in vats and churned at regular intervals so that all the fruits soak up the alcohol evenly. The mixture is put in casks to soak in all the liquid and mature and will then be used for the Christmas plum cake. Most of it will be used during this Christmas, but some portion of it will be kept for another year to be used during next Christmas.”
So, will this mixture keep for one year? Executive chef Pradeepta said, “Every month, we will open the vat and churn the mixture till next Christmas. Actually the wine in the mixture works as a preservative and so there is no chance of it getting spoilt.”