The Year Round Tradition of Indian Fruitcake

The first time I tried fruitcake, I fell in love. Maybe it was in the rum-soaked nuts, maybe it was the South Asian spices, maybe it was because I was forbidden to eat it — which made it all the tastier. Growing up in a strict Hindu Brahmin household, eating food from non-Brahmin homes was not allowed and even eggs weren't considered vegetarian, a rule that made most fluffy Western-style cakes taboo. 

Unlike its Western analog that is more maligned in the U.S. than it is savored, Indian fruitcake is a beloved delicacy that is part of Anglo-Indian cuisine. Recipes vary, but South Asians have no doubt improved upon the British analog thanks to a melting pot of culinary techniques and an agricultural trove of spices, nuts and fruit. Dry, dense food is not in our repertoire. Indian bakers even developed eggless recipes that used curd, buttermilk or flaxseeds to bind, lift, and accommodate strict vegetarians. 

As much as I enjoyed my family’s Punjabi-style vegetarian cuisine, I craved the unfamiliar food in my classmates' lunchboxes and the aromas wafting from our neighbors’ kitchens around mealtime. Unlike my family, I was an equal opportunity eater. 

My parents sent me to an all-girl's Catholic school in New Delhi where I made friends who were Indian Christians and I had no qualms about eating the food they shared with me. I wasn’t allowed to go to their houses to play, so my cultural immersion began during lunchtime and on the school bus ride home. As I got older, I started sneaking over to their homes to hang out and get a taste of whatever was cooking on the stove.

To me, food was no different than other byproducts of colonialism that I was encouraged to consume. Throughout my schooling, I read the Bible and learned to speak English, a skill that I performed like a party trick. At an early age, I learned that my proximity to Western culture was an asset and, like most kids, I sought the approval of my peers. I remember feeling a lot of guilt about going to a Catholic school compared to my cousins who went to government schools. They would show me off to their friends, asking me to say things like, “Please” or “Thank you” in English on command. And I was more than willing to share my skill set in exchange for their acceptance. 

My relationship with fruitcake has evolved over the years. While working at the Delhi Sheraton hotel kitchen, my first serious job fresh out of college, every year during Christmas time we baked and sold thousands of fruitcakes, a popular holiday gift. There, the labor intensive preparation of Indian fruitcake became a party. 

Months before we fired up the ovens, our entire pastry department gathered to ceremoniously mix hundreds of pounds of chopped dried fruit and nuts with cases of dark liquor like rum, brandy or whisky in a massive container. We emptied bottle after bottle into the container resembling a kiddie pool of halved nuts and chopped fruit swimming in dark liquor, treating ourselves to little shots of rum as we worked. This blend would soak for three months before the cake was ready to be baked. 

After moving to the U.S. in the 1990s, I remember the first time I baked a fruitcake with a pastry chef. I was surprised that the steps were all different from how we did it in India. Instead of soaking the fruit and nuts in alcohol beforehand, the entire cake was repeatedly basted in booze after it was baked, which weighed down the fluffy crumb. I missed Indian fruitcake. The American version I encountered lacked the flavor and texture my tongue expected, there were no little shots of rum, and there was no taboo in eating fruitcake here, only an air of dismissive satire.

Long before it was brought to India in the late 1800s or before it became a punchline on late-night television in the 1980s, fruitcake's origins already carried a complicated history of imperialism, food preservation, and changing dietary restrictions. 

The ancient prototype for fruitcake dates back to Imperial Rome where it resembled a shelf stable power bar for Roman soldiers made from barley mash, dried fruit, honey, nuts, and wine, according to Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome by Joseph Dommers Vehling. European religious dietary restrictions shaped fruitcake much like in India, with some church regulations omitting butter during periods of fasting. As imports from colonial plantations in the Caribbean running on enslaved labor brought white sugar to Europeans, fruitcake became sweeter and richer. It goes by many names: fruit bread, plumcake (when people equated raisins with plums), Christmas cake, rum cake, black cake, and is ancestor to German Stollen and Italian Panettone. One thing has been constant throughout the ages: fruitcake doesn’t go bad. In fact, it gets better with age.

On a massive subcontinent known for its heat and humidity, food that doesn’t require refrigeration is pragmatic. Food that gets better with age is luxury. Food that represents both survival and indulgence is an instant crowd favorite. 

The story of fruitcake in India is an aged blend of history and folklore, pointing in several directions across the subcontinent. In Kolkata, one of the most famous bakeries in all of India is Nahoum and Sons, a family-run Jewish bakery founded in 1916 by Nahoum Israel Mordecai, a Baghdadi Jew known for his legendary plum cake. As Mayukh Sen writes, “Even after the topple of British rule in India, fruitcake stuck to Kolkata’s soul like tar.” 

In Kerala, home to India’s largest Christian population, a British merchant commissioned a plum cake in 1883 from local baker, Mambally Bapu, who allegedly recreated the cake using locally fermented ingredients instead of French brandy. In Uttar Pradesh, the Allahabadi cake is a regional version of fruitcake made with petha (candied ash gourd) and local marmalade. 

The big issue for home cooks who wanted to try their hand at fruitcake was access to an oven. Most Indian home kitchens didn’t have them. So, it was customary for people to take their fruitcake batter to their local bakery to be baked, or make stovetop baking contraptions. An object of constant revision, Fruitcake has adapted well to South Asian culinary innovation. 

Eight years ago, I made fruitcake for the first time in my own kitchen. At this time, I was working as a savory and pastry chef working in Michelin-starred Indian restaurants in New York City, and had started a confectionary side hustle selling custom cakes and mithai to clients and friends. I created a space for myself where I could play, teasing out flavors from my childhood that I loved, employing techniques from my culinary training, and using ingredients I had access to. 

Making fruitcake was a no-brainer, and the result is a recipe that’s distinctly me, yet easy to modify with different fruit, nuts and alcohol. If my relationship with fruitcake has taught me anything, it’s to be generous and scrappy. Fruitcake has evolved alongside religious and dietary changes. It’s a dessert that is about making do with what’s available, planning ahead, and taking much needed time to rest. Inside of each cake is a gentle reminder that I can take time to rest and revise my life’s plan at any point, as needed — before or after New Year’s resolutions are announced and then abandoned. 

Although eaten most during the winter months, I love that fruitcake is a year round snack for Indians. That we embrace this cake so wholeheartedly is as if to say that every day is worth celebrating self-preservation. To preserve something of value is an act of survival that colonized people understand deeply. Maybe that's why we like fruitcake so much.