Twelfth Night Cake

‘Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch…’ (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol)

In my last post I wrote about the sheer amount of food we traditionally consume at Christmas, and made reference to a range of novels which document this abundance. Amongst them is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843) and the description of the plentiful Christmas food that Scrooge witnesses when he is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Amongst the foods listed are ‘immense twelfth-cakes‘. The Twelfth Cakes that Dickens is referring to originated in the Middle Ages and were commonly eaten during the Christmas period. As their name indicates they were traditionally eaten on Twelfth Night (either 5th or 6th January, depending on whether you count the first day of Christmas as being Christmas Day, or the first day after Christmas Day, i.e. 26th December). 6th January is the Feast of the Epiphany (the celebration of the visit of the magi – wise men – to the Christ Child in Bethlehem), and nowadays most people think of Twelfth Night as the last day of Christmas, and the day when the tree and the decorations should be taken down.

Until the 19th century Epiphany was considered a more important festival than Christmas, and the Twelfth Cake – a heavily fruited and spiced cake with ornate decorations – bears many similarities to the Christmas cakes we eat nowadays. When in the Victorian age Christmas overtook Epiphany as the important festival – in some part due to the popularity of A Christmas Carol – the Twelfth Cake gave way to the Christmas Cake.

However, the tradition of eating a cake on Twelfth Night is still popular in many countries. It is frequently referred to as the cake of the kings (in France, it’s La Galette des Rois, in Spain El Roscon de Reyes, in Catalunya El Tortell de Reis and in Germany Dreikonigskuche). Unlike the English Twelfth Cake, these cakes are shaped as rings: in France a ring of pastry is filled with an almond cream, whereas the Spanish and German versions are enriched and decorated sweet dough rings. In all these cases – as was also the case with the English Twelfth Cake – a token (for example a coin, a dried bean, a little figure) is traditionally baked in the dough. Whoever gets the token in their slice is crowned king – or queen – for the day.

My Twelfth Night cake is a Cornish recipe (from Cornish Feasts and Festivals by Liz Woods). Like its Spanish and German counterparts, it’s a yeasted ring with icing and decorations, which is best eaten in wedges and spread thickly with butter.

TWELFTH NIGHT CAKE
Ingredients (Serves 10-12)
150g unsalted butter
500g strong white bread flour
80g caster sugar
1 ½ teaspoons fine sea salt
2 ½ teaspoons easy-blend yeast
250ml milk
2 medium eggs

Optional: a token (coin, dried kidney bean etc)

To decorate: 5 tablespoons icing sugar and a little hot water, glace cherries, flaked almonds, anything else you fancy…

Method:
Begin by melting the butter in a saucepan over a gentle heat. Leave to cool.
Meanwhile, place the dry ingredients in a large bowl or a food mixer. Pour in the melted butter, milk and beaten eggs and mix to make a sticky dough. Knead the dough – either in the mixer or by hand on a lightly floured board – until you have a soft and elastic dough. If you’re kneading by hand it will take you about 10 minutes. If you are using a token, work it into the dough now.
Put the dough in a bowl, cover it and leave in a warm place until it is doubled in size – this will take somewhere between 1 and 2 hours.
Empty the risen dough onto a floured board or surface and punch it back down. Then form it into a rope about 60 cm long. Using a bit of water stick the two ends together to make a ring. Place the ring on a greased baking sheet, cover and leave to rise again for about 45 minutes.
In the meantime preheat the oven to 190C / Fan 170C / Gas mark 5. Bake the ring for 30-35 minutes until it is golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap it lightly on the underside.
Let the ring cool and then decorate it. Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl and slowly drizzle in enough hot water to make a thin icing. Trickle the icing over the cake in any way you want, and then stick on the cherries, nuts and any other decoration you have.