By Our Correspondent
The year end is just round the corner, heralding the arrival of Christmas, an occasion for family reunions, festivities and celebrations.
One of the liveliest traditions of Christmas is the mixing of the ingredients for the Christmas plum cake. This age old tradition followed initially by Christian households has been adopted by many hotels and bakeries and the cake mixing is observed with much fanfare.
“The occasion is very special for us and we are celebrating this since the hotel opened its door in the year 2011,” said Thomas Pulimoottil, Managing Partner of The Horizon Manor Hotel in Doha.
The cake mixing ceremony was arranged this year too and started with distribution of aprons, chef’s caps and hand gloves to all the participants.
Tarun Kapoor, Executive Chef, at the hotel mentioned that more than a dozen varieties of nuts and dry fruits along with special spices were added in the mixture to make it more exotic and delicious.
The fruits and nuts included almonds, cashew nuts, red cherry, raisins, orange peel, lemon peel, ginger peel, figs, prunes, black currants, dried apricot, pineapple, papaya, dates and spices included cinnamon powder, ginger powder, nutmeg powder, and cardamom powder.
As the mixing started everybody wished Merry Christmas to each other. The 200 kg mixture was hand mixed by all the managers and staff of the hotel who actively participated in the ceremony.
Shirish Ballikar, Food and Beverage Manager, also mentioned that we also follow the pot luck custom by dispersing few coins in the mixture, the one who gets a coin in the finished cake is said to be blessed with good fortune. The mixture is left to soak and ferment in an air tight vessel, the more number of days mixture is left to soak, the better the cake is.
“We also keep some mixture for the next year and then add it to the new batch to get a tastier and a flavourful cake,” added Chef Kapoor.
