JOIN USIf the slight nip in the air isn’t enough to convince you that winter’s almost here, the cake mixing at Vivanta by Taj ought to do the trick. To bring in the festive season, the hotel recently hosted its fruit-soaking ceremony ahead of Christmas.
One thing that’s always associated with Christmas is the delicious plum cake, for which the mixing needs to be done more than a month in advance.
Keeping this in mind, four huge trays filled with 18 different varieties of fruits were mixed with 25 bottles of alcohol by the hotel staff, guests and anyone else who wanted to join in.
“Cake mixing marks the beginning of the festive season. It’s a ritual that brings luck and prosperity, and the ingredients are loaded with exotic flavours and happiness,” shares Vivek Sharma, food and beverage manager.
Executive chef Ramasamy Selvaraju explains, “We put 80 litres of different kinds of alcohol like wine, rum, whiskey and gin into around 45 kg of mixed fruits like raisins, cherries, prunes, orange peel, dried ginger and blackcurrant.
It takes around 45 days for the alcohol to be completely absorbed. When the fruit acid and alcohol ferment together, it gives a nice aroma and flavour to the plum cakes.”
When asked if the copious amounts of alcohol are meant to intoxicate the person who eats the cake, he laughs and says, “No, when you eat it, it won’t make you high.
In the fermenting process and when the cake is in the oven, the alcohol evaporates. It’s just exciting when you finally taste it.” For the hotel guests who showed up, it was quite a novel experience.
“It was very interesting — we were given aprons, gloves and a chef’s hat. We poured alcohol into the fruits and mixed it with our hands.
I did not know about the process of making plum cakes,” says Thi Ut, a guest at the hotel.
Ikker and Hilda, a couple from Austria, were also present at the mixing. “It was very nice, though I think it was a little too much alcohol for me to see and smell,” concludes Ikker.