Dundee Cake is like a humble pie; it doesn’t have the traditional pastry cream or buttercream frosting, but is perfect for chilly days and nights when the food gets a little too rich and greasy. The humble cake topped with almonds is the perfect after-meal indulgence after heavy dinners.
Fondly known as the Queen of Cakes, Dundee the cake is a Christmas cake that radiates comfort and warmth originating in the coastal Scottish city of Dundee. It was said to have been made by a particular Scottish local bakery by repurposing leftover dried fruits from Christmas cakes. It primarily consists of sultanas (a kind of dried local raisin), currants (another kind of raisin), and the regular raisins that we know of.
These dried fruits are usually soaked in spirits like brandy or whisky before being incorporated into the cake batter. The incorporation of the plump dry fruits results in a very moist and rich cake that enriches the Dundee cake. What makes this cake stand out is the arrangement of peeled almonds, split in half, on top of the cake which lends a nutty flavor to an otherwise plain fruitcake. But, while it might have been a particular coastal bakery that invented the first version of the modern Dundee cake, its history is a little older than that.
While it is said it was made in the 1800s, the Dundee cake is said to be at least 350 years old, and was said to have been first made and served to Mary Queen of Scots in the 16th century. Cherries are quite common in fruitcakes, and the Queen didn’t like glacé cherries, so the bakers were asked to swap the cherries with almonds to suit the taste preference of the Queen. But instead of putting the almonds into the batter they chose to decorate the surface of the cake in a concentric circular pattern. However, there are no written edicts of such a tale even though it is believed by the locals that had happened.
The name Dundee cake had yet to be christened to this early form of the substitute Christmas cake, but as time passed, one bakery chose to cinch the crowning glory of naming the cake. The time period is a bit muddled; some say it was the 1700s and some say it was the 1800s when Janet Keiller, created the original Dundee cake that is widely cherished and baked today during Christmas time. Her bakery, Keiller’s Marmalade, later started mass producing it.
While the lore around the Queen of Scots might be just a fanciful tale and never be able to be proven, it is said, the late Queen Elizabeth II was quite fond of the Dundee cake and her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria was also known to have liked the cake.
Its burgeoning popularity was soon picked up by other local bakeries and they too started producing the Dundee cake. But this was not until the 1970s, before which only Keiller’s commercially produced the cake, for the recipe was not shared. Many Scottish and British bakeries disguised the common fruitcake as the Dundee cake by topping the fruitcake with almonds as in the Dundee cake but of course, they did not taste the same as the original. Today, dried orange peels and nutmeg have also found a place in the Dundee cake that lends it that festive flavor that is a trademark with most Christmas desserts. The tin box is a trademark packaging that comes with the festive cake. Now that you know the royal-tinged history of the festive Dundee cake, it's time to get baking for Christmas is just round the corner!
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