The festive season is fast approaching and we at Stylenerds Journal are already gearing up for it. Our first festive event this year was the Cake Mixing Ceremony at Honey and Dough, our new favorite restaurant at One Africa Place along Waiyaki Way in Westlands. After the Media Tasting, we were exceptionally delighted to receive another invitation by Honey and Dough for their Cake Mixing event that took place on the 29th of October. Since the mood has turned a little dull with the rainy season, it felt only right to make things cheerful with some cake. There is no wrong time to have cake after all.
Cake mixing ceremonies and usually done to prepare for the onset of Christmas but do you know how this ritual began? allow us to give you a bit of a backstory on the history of Cake Mixing before we continue with how our experience at Honey and Dough went down.
Cake Mixing rituals are dated as far back as the 17thcentury, during a time when preservatives and such innovations were yet to be discovered. Christmas would not be complete without the signature fruitcake but ingredients used to make it were seasonal fruits and nuts. This presented a predicament since the fruits were not available during winter. They were therefore prepared after harvesting and stored for use when Christmas eventually came. The ritual turned into a family affair and modern societies later integrated it into a socializing event where people gather to have fun and prepare for the festive season.
A socializing event was the kind of set up that Honey and Dough prepared for us, an afternoon that we spent mingling and interacting with other invited guests. The event was scheduled at 1:00 pm and we arrived at One Africa Place right on time, making sure not to arrive late this time around. We were the first to arrive and got to have a lemon and ginger juice and some delicious Samosa as we waited for the other guests to arrive. At around 2:00 pm, we officially began the cake-mixing event by getting a pair of gloves each. We did not expect that we would do the mixing ourselves but we were thrilled regardless since this was a first for me. Honey and Dough’s international chef guided us through the exercise and walked us through the entire process.
We started by mixing the dry fruits in a bowl – this included raisins, glazed red cherries, orange peel, blackcurrants, figs, dried apricots and nuts like walnuts, cashew, and almonds. I tasted the nuts since I could not help it with so many displayed. The hard part though was trying to crush the nuts, which was exceptionally difficult with my feeble hands trained only for the keyboard. The interesting part came when we added the wine, brandy and whiskey into the mix – this felt like a waste for some of us who preferred to have a sip of it instead. We however kept to the task and added all of it to the mix. The chef said it would get easier to crash the nuts once they were wetted by the wine but things only got messy as the mixture splashed around. Muffled giggles and apologies for stained clothes could be heard all around but we had a lot of fun. After the mixing, the chef explained that the concoction would be fermented for about a month after which it would be used to make a delicious cake! We however got to taste a previously prepared cake using the same mix. The cake was juicy, fluffy and so delectable that the only way to describe how good it was with rounded eyes, head nods and barely discernible mumbling. It was definitely a first for me to taste a cake made of alcohol and it was interesting to taste how the ingredients meshed to create such a sumptuous cake. We finished the session with a fun photo session – a trip to Honey and Dough is never complete without a few pictures for the gram.
The Honey and Dough staff sent us off with a fruitcake as token and we were glad to experience the Christmas cheer with a few weeks still to go. Christmas definitely came early for us and we can only give our special thanks to Honey and Dough for spreading the cheer!
Head on to Honey and Dough to try some of their cake heaven. You won’t regret. 🙂
