Misplaced Pages

Tunis cake

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
(Redirected from Tunis Cake) British Christmas dessert
Tunis cake
Tunis Cake (Mary Berry recipe)
TypeMadeira cake
Region or stateUnited Kingdom
Main ingredientsChocolate icing, marzipan
Cross-section of a Tunis Cake (Mary Berry recipe)

A Tunis cake is a Madeira cake topped with a thick layer of chocolate and decorated with marzipan fruits. It is traditionally eaten at Christmas.

It is thought that the origins of the cake are Edwardian. The Scottish bakery Macfarlane Langs produced commercial Tunis Cakes in the 1930s, and when they merged with McVitie & Price in 1948 to form a company called United Biscuits (which still owns the McVitie's brand), the recipe passed to the new company. McVitie's produced a Tunis cake until the mid 1980s. The updated recipe used by McVitie's is said to have been created by Elizabeth Ewing of Inverness, whose husband was a baker at McVitie's. Her husband had eaten a similar cake whilst stationed in Tunisia during World War II.

It is now sold seasonally by some supermarkets in the UK. The cake is usually topped with marzipan fruits. Some recipes, such as the BBC Good Food and Mary Berry recipe, top the cake with marzipan holly leaves and berries instead of marzipan fruits. An early recipe does not include the chocolate and marzipan topping.

The port city of Tunis was known for exporting North African fruits. In March 1934 the Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser printed a recipe including the North African fruits dates, figs, walnuts and prunes. In 1936 Garratt's Bakers of Lichfield included honey, dates and walnuts in their recipe, plus topping the cake with chocolate icing.

References

  1. "Christmas 2011 order form" (PDF). 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
  2. ^ Creative, Venn. "Traditional Tunis Cake". Warrens Bakery. Archived from the original on 2021-12-28. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  3. ^ "Tunis Cake pt II | Epicurean's Answer".
  4. JPC-DESIGN, whychristmas?com /. "Recipe: Tunis Cake (United Kingdom) - WhyChristmas.com". www.whychristmas.com. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  5. ^ "Foods of England - Tunis Cake". www.foodsofengland.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  6. "Tunis Cake A Great British Christmas Tradition". How to plan a perfect Christmas. 2021-12-21. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  7. "Mary Berry's Tunis Cake". The Great British Bake Off. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  8. Frederick T. Vine (1907). Saleable shop goods for counter-tray and window. Office of the Baker and Confectioner. p. 77. Retrieved 2011-12-16. tunis.

External links

Categories: