Twelfth Night Cake

Twelfth Night Cake (aka Rosca de Reyes, Gateau des Rois, King Cake) honors the Three Wise Men who visited the baby Jesus on the 12th day after his birth. This Christian holiday is called Epiphany, Twelfth Night, and Three Kings Day. These festive enriched goods are consumed through Mardi Gras, ending on Ash Wednesday, the commencement of Lent.

The cake is a basic yeast-based brioche filled with dried fruits and nuts. The recipe descends from Ancient Arab recipes. The practice of serving this particular cake, often with a prize or bean inside, around Christmas time predates Christian times. Ancient Romans served a similar item. The traditional King Cake, as we know it today, was made by Christians throughout most of Europe by the Middle Ages. King cakes were introduced to America by European settlers. In places settled by Spanish missionaires (Mexico, South America, Florida, California), rosca de reyes was served. In the United States, the King Cakes of New Orleans are probably the most well known. German/Bavarian Dreikonigskeuchen (recipe here) is encased in a gold paper crown.

"Twelfth-Night Cake. In many countries it was customary to celebrate Ephiphany with a feast on its eve, or Twelfth Night. A central feature of these festivities was a cake in which a bean or token was hidden. He who found it in his piece of cake was named lord of the evening's entertainments and could command guests to do his bidding. In France the cake was known as gateau des rois, or king's cake, in honour of the Wise Men, whose feast Epiphany is; in Louisiana it is "king cake"; in Germany it is Dreikongskuchen; it is the Black Bun in Scotland; in Portugal it is bola-rei; and in Spain it is rosca de reyes."

---The World of Christmas, Gerry Bowler [McClelland & Stewart:Toronto] 2000 (p. 230)

"A long succession of mock kings have ruled over winter holiday merrymaking in Europe. In ancient times they presided over feasts held in honor of the Roman festival of Saturnalia...In the Middle Ages the boy bishop and the Lord of Misrule directed certain Christmas festivities...Twelfth Night celebrations, however, came under the special supervision of another mock ruler: the King of the Bean. In past centuries, the English, French, Spanish, German and Dutch celebrated Twelfth Night, or Epiphany Eve, with a feast. The Twelfth Night cake not only provided dessert, but also helped to facilitate an old custom...While preparing the cake the cook dropped a bean, coin or other small object in to the batter. The man who found the object in his slice of cake was declared "King of the Bean." If a woman received the bean, she became queen and appointed a man as king...The king presided over the rest of the evening's activities...Christmas season mock kings sprouted up regularly in mediveal Europe. Records indicate that in late medieval France thse kings were selected by a kind of edible lottery...In the sixteenth century, ordinary Dutch and German households celebrated Twelfth Night by baking a coin into a cake and acknowledging whoever received the coin in their slice of cake as king of the feast. In the next century, this Twelfth Night custom spread to England, France, and Spain..."

---Encyclopedia of Christmas and New Year's Celebrations, Tanya Gulevich [Omnigraphics:Detroit] 2nd edition, 2003 (p. 404-5)

"King cake. A brioche-style cake made during the Louisiana carnival season, beginning in January and ending at Mardi Gras...By tradition the cake contains a red bean (sometimes covered in gold or silver lear) or a figurine of the baby Jesus. It is sold widely throughout Louisiana...the person who finds the bean or figurine is prmosed good luck. There are various stories as the the origins of ther cake, though most in some way derive from the legend of the Three Kings visiting the infant Jesus in Bethlehem, as described in the New Testament. In the first half of the sixteenth century France commemorated Kings' Day--the twelfth day after Christmas--with a "Twelfth Night cake." A century later King Louis XIV took part in such a feast at which gateau des Rois ("Kings' cake") contained a hidden bean or creamic figure, as it does to this day. Before the Civil War American King cakes often contained gold, diamonds, or valuable instead of beans; after the war, with the end of gala Creole balls in Louisiana, peas, beans, pecans, and coins were used, and in 1871 the tradition of choosing the queen of the Mardi Gras was determined by who drew the prize in the cake...The colors of purple (for justice), green (for faith). And gold (for power) that traditionally tint the cake's icing first appeared in 1872 after the Rex Krewe, a Mardi Gras parade organization, chose those colors to celebrate that year's festival."

Sugarplums

Sugarplums belong to the comfit family, a confection traditionally composed of tiny sugar-coated seeds. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word sugarplum thusly: "A small round or oval sweetmeat, made of boiled sugared and variously flavoured and coloured; a comfit." The earliest mention of this particular food is 1668. The term also has another meaning "Something very pleasing or agreeable; esp. when given as a sop or bribe," which dates to 1608. Did you know? According to the food historians, the word plum in Victorian times referred to raisins or dried currants, not plums as we Americans think of them today. Notes from Alice Ross on Christmas Pudding (aka plum pudding).

"Sugarplums were an early form of boiled sweet. Not acutally made from plums...they were nevertheless roughly the size and shape of plums, and often had little wire stalks' for suspending them from. They came in an assortment of colours and flavours, and frequently, like comfits, had an aniseed, caraway seed, etc. at their centre. The term was in vogue from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, but is now remebered largely thanks to the Sugarplum Fairy, a character in Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet (1892.)"

---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 329)

Visions of sugarplums/Sharon Cohen...history and instructions for making them.

What are comfits?

"Comfit, an archaic English word for an item of confectionery consisting of a seed, or nut coated in several layers of sugar...In England these small, hard sugar sweets were often made with caraway seeds, known for sweetening the breath (hence kissing confits). Up to a dozen coats of syrup were needed before the seeds were satisfactorily encrusted. Comfits were eaten a sweets, and also used in other sweet dishes; for example seed cake was made with caraway comfits rather than loose caraway seeds as in the 19th century. Confectioners as early as the 17th century recognized by varying the proportions of sugar in the syrup they could change the final texture, making pearled comfits or crisp and ragged comfits. The word comfit remained in use in English up until the 20th century: Alice, of Alice in Wonderland, has a box of comfits in her pocket."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 208)

"Comfit making demanded both leisure and special equipment; a ladle, a slice, a basin to heat the sugar suspended from cords over another bowl containing hot coals, and yet another basin in which the seeds, fruits or spices were treated. Molten sugar was ladled over them, and after each application they had to be dried and cooled. Several coats of sugar were needed. Caraways will be fair at twelve coats; and even crisp and ragged comfits, for which the sugar was boiled to a greater height, required eight to ten coats. Fortunately there were professional confectioners in the larger towns. So the gentle woman unequaled to the task of creating her own banqueting fare could purchase it herself, or commission kinsfolk or friends to bring back sweetmeats when they travelled on business."

Christmas pudding (aka plum pudding)

How old is the tradition?

"Christmas pudding, the rich culimation of a long process of development of 'plum puddings' which can be traced back to the early 15th century. The first types were not specifically associated with Christmas. Like early mince pies, they contained meat, of which a token remains in the use of suet. The original form, plum pottage, were made from chopped beef or mutton, onions and perhaps other root vegetables, and dried fruit. As the name suggests, it was a fairly liquid preparation: this was before the invention of the pudding cloth made large puddings feasible. As was usual with such dishes, it was served at the beginning of the meal. When new kinds of dried fruit became available in Britain, first raisins, then prunes in the 16th century, they were added. The name 'plum' refers to a prune; but it soom same to mean any dried fruit. In the 16th century variants were made with white meat...and gradually the meat came to be omitted, to be replaced by suet. The root vegetables disappeared, although even now Christmas pudding often still includes a token carrot...By the 1670s, it was particularly associated with Christmas and called 'Christmas pottage'. The old plum pottage continued to be made into the 18th century, and both versions were still served as a filing first course rather than as a dessert...What currently counts as the traditional Christmas pudding recipe has been more or less established since the 19th century."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2000 (p. 184-5)

"...the name Christmas pudding appears to be a comparatively recent coinage, first recorded in Anthony Trollope's Doctore Thorne (1858). The association of dishes containing mixed dried fruit and spices...with Christmas is a longstanding one, though. Most of them originally contained dried plums, or prunes, but long after these had been replaced by raisins the term plum lingrered on... Nowadays served only at Christmas...this was formerly a common year-round pudding."

---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 76)

"The plum pudding's association with Christmas takes us back to medieval England and the Roman Catholic Chruch's decree that the 'pudding should be made on the twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity, that it be prepared with thirteen ingredients to represent Christ and the twelve apostles, and that that every family member stir it in turn from east to west to honor the Magi and their supposed journey in that direction.'... Banned by the Puritans in the 1660s for its rich ingredients, the pudding and its customs came back into popularity during the reign of George I. Known sometimes as the Pudding King, George I requested that plum pudding be served as part of his royal feast when he celebrated his first Christmas in England after arriving from Hanover to take the throne in 1714. By 1740, a recipe for 'plum porridge' appeared in Christmas Entertainments. In the Victorian era, Christmas annuals, magazines, and cookbooks celebrated the sanctity of family as much as the sanctity of Jesus' birth, and the tradition of all family members stirring the pudding was often referenced...Poorer families made the riches version of plum pudding that they could afford...Even workhouse inmates anticipated a plum pudding on Christmas Day."

Mincemeat and mince pies

People have been mincing (chopping into tiny pieces) meat and other foods since ancient times. Hash is a related food. Minced meats accomplished many things. It

• Utilized leftover meat
• Stretched the protein supply
• Permitted meat to be incorporated into other dishes, as in mincemeat pie.

According to the food historians, mincemeat pie dates back to Medieval times. At that time, this recipe did, indeed, include meat. It also often contained dried fruits, sugar, and spices, as was the tradition of the day. The distinction between mincemeat and mince was drawn in the mid-nineteenth century when meat began disappearing from the recipe, leaving the fruit, nut, sugar, spice, and suet product we know today. Late 19th century cookbooks contain several recipes for both mincemeat and mince, some containing meat, others not. Some notes on the history of pie. As one might expect, there are several variations on this culinary theme. Yorkshire Stand Pie and Cape Breton Pork Pies are two prime examples.

This is what the food historians have to say:

"Mincemeat. The modern distinction between mince, minced meat and mincemeat, dried fruit mixed with spices, suet, and often some sort of alcohol arose only gradually. Mincemeat originally meant simply minced meat...and we do not have any unequivocable evidence of its being used in its current sense until the mid-nineteenth century. But in the Middle Ages and into Renaissance times and beyond it was commonplace to spice up or eke out meat with dried fruit, and it seems likely that the earliest mincepies contained a generous measure of such raisins, currants, etc. The reduction in meat content was a slow but steady process (still not complete, of course, for the inculsion of beef suet is a remnant of it). The growing need to draw a lexical distinction between the plain minced meat and mincemeat was signalled around 1850 by the introduction of the term mince for the former."

---An A-Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 214)

"Mince pie in Britain, is a miniature round pie, filled with mincemeat: typically a mixture of dried fruits, chopped nuts and apples, suet, spices, and lemon juice, vinegar, or brandy. Although the filling is called mincemeat, it rarely contains meat nowadays. In North America the pie may be larger, to serve several people. The large size is an innovation, for the original forms were almost always small. The earliest type was a small medieval pastry called a chewette, which contained chopped meat of liver, or fish on fast days, mixed with chopped hard-boiled egg and ginger. This might be baked or fried. It became usual to enrich the filling with dried fruit and other sweet ingredients. Already by the 16th century minced or shred pies, as they were then known, had become a Christmas specialty, which they still are. The beef was sometimes partly or wholly replaced by suet from the mid-17th century onwards, and meat had effectively disappeared from mincemeat' on both sides of the Atlantic in the 19th century."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 507) 

[NOTE: here is a recipe for medieval chawettys (chewettes)]

"Mincemeat. Also Mince. A mixture of chopped fruits, spices, suet, and, sometimes meat that is usually baked in a pie crust. The word comes from mincem to chop finely, whose own origins are in the Latin minuere, "to diminish," and once mincemeat referred specifically to a meat that had been minced up, a meaning it has had since the sixteenth century. By the nineteenth century, however, the word referred to a pie of fruit, spices, and suet, only occasionally containing any meat at all. In Colonial America these pies were made in the fall and sometimes frozen throughout winter."