[igp-embed url=”https://www.instagram.com/p/C0gaK3HqGuc/embed/” width=”612″ height=”710″ data-instgrm-captioned=””]
If you’re looking for Christmas cake recipes to bake that are a bit different, do a google search for two of my cakes – Black Christmas Cake (2006) and Marrakech Express Loaf (2008) – and let them excite you. And to tempt you, here’s a story about our friend in Trinidad, Franka Philip @real_trinifood who has used them as the starting point of her cakes for 2023 and taken them even further. Franka’s mother was a fantastic maker of cakes, and the talent clearly runs in the family.
🏿🇹🇹🖤
So my Black Christmas Cake was inspired by the idea of Trinidadian rum cake, not that I’d ever seen or tasted one but I’d seen classified ads in the @newyorkermag back in 2006 for bakeries that would ship one to you in the USA (cakes by post, still love that idea). So I took the description and built a cake recipe from it, using Guinness simmered-down to a syrup to give it a rich dark malt colour and flavour. And the Marrakech Express Loaf was all to do with #hempflour suddenly becoming available in 2008, I’d been sent some, and wondered about using it as the base for a rich date cake.
🏿🇹🇹🖤
When Franka returned to Trinidad after years working at the BBC World Service, she started tinkering with the Black Christmas cake, making it more personal and Trinidadian. So for this year’s (and last weekend’s) Trinidad & Tobago Christmas Candi Shoppe by @sweetlink.tt – founded and run by @sweetlycandi as a pop-up aimed at showcasing some of the very best in Trinidad & Tobago’s local fashion, food and creativity – Franka was selling “My Magic Cakes – Black Cake, and Spicy Date Pecan Cake” with many additions and tweaks but based on those old recipes, together with her crew @nicole_westfield @priyarmgomes @k_allister @vaughnette_bigford @woodroffejade @theroger666 .
🏿🇹🇹🖤
Franka, love you always, so many happy memories with you, and always inspired by you!
