Black cake

Ingredients

Soaked fruit, start weeks or months ahead

• 300 graisins
• 250 gcurrants
• 200 gpitted prunes
• 150 gglace cherries
• 100 gmixed candied peel
• 350 mldark Antiguan rum
• 250 mlcherry brandy or port

Browning

• 200 gcaster sugar
• 100 mlboiling water, added with great care

Batter

• 250 gbutter, softened
• 250 gdark brown sugar
• 5large eggs
• 250 gplain flour
• 2 tspbaking powder
• 2 tspmixed spice
• 1 tspground cinnamon
• 0.5 tspgrated nutmeg
• 1 tspvanilla extract
• finely grated zest of 1 lime

To finish

• 100 mldark rum, for feeding the baked cake

Directions

1. Combine all the dried fruit with the rum and cherry brandy in a sealed jar and leave it at room temperature for at least two weeks, and ideally three to twelve months, shaking it every few days. Antiguan households keep a jar going all year.
2. When you are ready to bake, blend or mince the soaked fruit with its liquid into a coarse dark puree, still a little textured rather than perfectly smooth.
3. Make the browning: melt the 200 g of caster sugar in a heavy dry pan over medium heat and let it go past caramel to a dark, smoking, almost black liquid that smells bitter, about 8 minutes.
4. Take it off the heat, stand back, and add the boiling water a spoonful at a time; it will erupt violently. Stir until smooth, then cool. This burnt sugar syrup gives the cake its colour and its faint bitterness, and no substitute gives the same result.
5. Line a 23 cm round tin with a double layer of paper standing 5 cm above the rim, and wrap the outside with brown paper tied on with string. Heat the oven to 150°C (300°F).
6. Cream the butter and brown sugar 5 minutes until light, then beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour with each to stop it curdling.
7. Fold in the fruit puree, the vanilla, lime zest and enough browning to take the batter to a deep mahogany, usually 4–6 tbsp.
8. Sift in the flour, baking powder and spices and fold until just combined; the batter should be dark, heavy and dropping consistency.
9. Bake 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours 15 minutes, until a skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs and the top is firm. Cover with foil after an hour if it darkens too fast.
10. Spoon the extra rum over the hot cake in the tin, a tablespoon at a time, letting each soak in. Cool completely in the tin, then wrap in paper and foil and keep at least a week, feeding it more rum weekly, before cutting into thin slices.

Technique

• Black cake descends from British boiled plum pudding by way of the Caribbean, and the two things that make it Antiguan rather than English are the burnt sugar browning and the long rum soak, which can run for a year.
• The browning must be taken genuinely dark, past the point that looks wrong. Stopped at amber it sweetens the cake instead of colouring it, and the crumb comes out brown rather than black.
• Adding boiling water to smoking caramel spits violently. Use a deep pan, hold the pan away from you, and add the water very slowly.
• Low and slow is not optional. At 150°C (300°F) with a double-lined and paper-wrapped tin, a cake this dense bakes through without the outside drying to a crust.

Substitutions

• For an alcohol-free version, soak the fruit for a week in strong black tea and orange juice with a splash of vanilla, and feed the baked cake with more of the same. The keeping time drops to a few days in the fridge.
• No cherry brandy: use port, sweet sherry or simply more dark rum. Bottled browning, sold in Caribbean shops, can replace the homemade caramel at 3–4 tbsp.

Variations

• The wedding and Christmas version, covered in marzipan and royal icing.
• Great cake, the same batter baked in a wide shallow tin and cut into squares.
• A lighter Antiguan variant that swaps half the prunes for chopped dried apricots.

History

Antigua’s Christmas cake, the fruit steeped in rum and cherry brandy for months before baking.

Frequently asked questions

What is Black cake?

Black cake is a dessert from Antigua and Barbuda: dark rum-soaked fruit cake, dense and boozy, cut in thin slices. Antigua’s Christmas cake, the fruit steeped in rum and cherry brandy for months before baking.

How long does Black cake take to make?

Black cake takes 45 min of preparation and 2 hr baking, plus weeks of soaking of cooking. The recipe makes 12 servings, one 23 cm cake. It is rated hard to make.

What can I substitute in Black cake?

Yes, within limits. For an alcohol-free version, soak the fruit for a week in strong black tea and orange juice with a splash of vanilla, and feed the baked cake with more of the same. The keeping time drops to a few days in the fridge. No cherry brandy: use port, sweet sherry or simply more dark rum. Bottled browning, sold in Caribbean shops, can replace the homemade caramel at 3–4 tbsp.

What is the most important thing to get right in Black cake?

When you are ready to bake, blend or mince the soaked fruit with its liquid into a coarse dark puree, still a little textured rather than perfectly smooth.