Gowri Ganesha Festival in India
Cake Mixing Events across Bangalore City
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Christmas Cake Mixing is one the common events that has been celebrated across various properties in the Bangalore city. A tradition that has been popularly picked up from Western countries has now become a common ritual in our country as well. Cake Mixing involves mixing dry-fruits with various liquors nearly 4-8 weeks before Christmas. Cakes made from the mixture is then distributed to the guests during the Christmas & New Year time-frame. Traditionally a private event with family members has now become a social event.
History of Cake Mixing
The origins of cake mixing comes from Europe in 17th century and was used to celebrate the harvest of fruits & nuts. This age-old Christmas ritual would bring families together and the plum-cake made was used to bring best wishes for New Year. The traditions have since then been adapted across many countries around the world. Slowly the tradition started to be adapted by the hoteliers to celebrate the arrival of Christmas and build awareness.
As part of the mixing process, both dry-fruits & liquor is mixed well then stored in large containers. Dry-fruits used in the process include Cinnamon, Clove, Cashew, Black Raisin, Almond, Cherries, Black Cherries, Figs, Pistachio, Tutti-Frutti, Peaches, Apricots, Blueberry and more. Liquors mixed with the dry-fruits include Rum, Brandy, Whisky, Wine, Vodka, Rum, Beer and more. The mixture is usually soaked for 40-days and then baked into an aromatic cake with rich ingredients. Alcohol in the cake acts as preservative and it can be kept for long duration.
Its also known that many times the Chefs would put in coins in between the dry-fruits. So, when the liquor is mixed with the dry-fruits, it’s expected that the coins be found. The encourage all the Chefs to mix the ingredients thoroughly to make it very consistent. The intention is not to let the guests getting get a bit of the coin as lucky charm. Also, the Executive Chef reward the subordinate or the person mixing, if they able to find the coin.
Cake Mixing Now
I have known couple of Hotels for doing the traditional cake-mixing over the years. These days I see that almost every hotel or resort has started doing it which is excellent news. The Hoteliers invite Celebrities, Socialites, Influencers and Inhouse guests to be part of fun-filled event.
Personally, I have been part of multiple cake-mixing event across the city and have had lovely experience. So, I thought of penning down info about some of the event I attended.
THE DEN
A new hotel that has come up in the busy Whitefield area was the first of the hotels that hosted a cake mixing event. The hotel has got a wonderful 24-hour coffee shop named THE CREEK that serves the buffet that has mix of Indian, Asian, Continental & Italian cuisines. They also have a beautiful restaurant named LAYLA that serves authentic Mediterranean delights.
The event happened on a 21st Oct’18 (Sunday) and nearly 250kgs of dry-fruits were mixed with plenty of alcohol that included Wine, Whisky, Beer, Brandy and more. Vinesh Gupta (General Manager) and Chef Kapil (Executive Chef) were very much part of the wonderful event.
The fun even was then followed up with a beautiful Sunday Drunk at one of the hotels named ‘The Creek’.
This Cake Mixing will remain close to my heart as the info about the event appeared in the best newspaper, Bangalore Times
Grand Mercure
This is one of the old properties that located in the busy Koramangala area thats away from the busy city-traffic. The hotel always gets its loyal guests who prefer staying in a calm 5-star property with the best of the facilities.
The Cake Mixing event happened on a 27th Oct’18 (Saturday) in the evening at ‘BY THE BLUE’ poolside bar & restaurant. Event was attended by Rayan Aranha (General Manager) and Chef Gopal Jhan (Executive Chef) along with other guests. During this event, Chef spend some time explaining about the history of Cake Mixing before actually starting the cake-mixing. Chef also shared info regarding the coin-hiding tradition and had 3 coins placed among the dry-fruits. It was fun as everyone tries to frantically find the coin and be rewarded.
Event was followed by a special Hi-Tea with assortment of snacks and some mulled wine.
Royal Orchid Central
Another beautiful hotel in the heart of Bangalore city hosted a Cake Mixing session. In this event the main-partners for the event were SDU wine and I personally love the DEVA Red Wines from the same brand. Not sure if the SDU brand wanted to have mostly wines mixed along with dry-fruits instead of any other liquor.
A relatively smaller tray with lesser amount of dry-fruits was mixed with liquor. But there were plenty of liquor used in the mix that included Vodka, Wine, Whisky and some Beer. The mixture was so intoxicating that I felt almost a high while mixing the ingredients.
The cake mixing event happened at the GING Restaurant located on the 12th floor on 9-Nov’18 (Friday). Location was just perfect as the view of Bangalore city was just breath-taking in the evening. I personally loved the experience and the event was followed with Hi-Tea along with selection of SDU Wines.
Aloft – Outer Ring Road
This hotel is located amid the core-IT belt in Bangalore i.e., Outer Ring Road. To be precise, its right in between multiple buildings housing Cisco office. Chef Ankit Das and his team picked up 11-Nov’18 (Sunday) for the event as all the office are closed over weekend.
The cake mixing setup was in a huge open-air lawn area located on 2nd level. They had invited nearly 40-50 guests to be part of the wonderful event on Sunday. Instead of getting on to Cake Mixing, they let us all enjoy some lovely Sunday brunch with Champagne. Later we got on to the act of Cake Mixing and were busy pouring all the ingredients while having fun. All the guests stood for the group selfie and then noticed that there were atleast 100 of us including the Chefs. This surely was quite special and fun-filled activity.
As a token on appreciation for being at evet, ALOFT team gave all of us a bottle contained dry-fruit & alcohol mix from last years mixing.
Other Places
There one of the Cake Mixing event at THE OTERRA, Whitefield which I could not participate. It was the heavy city traffic that held me back from reaching the place in time.
Apart from these there were many Cake Mixing events that happened across the city. Few of them I wasn’t invited and for many I could not attend due to other personal commitments. But its nice to know that every Hotelier has taken it upon themselves to weave a beautiful event around this custom.
Upcoming Events
The next event that everyone is eager looking forward to are centered around Christmas and New Year 2019 Celebrations.
As a preparation to Christmas celebrations, hotels come up Christmas Tree Lighting and Ginger Bread Houses. These events are also celebrated with much fan-far with carols and introducing the kids to Santa. I have already been part of an event at Sheraton Grand Brigade Gateway and will be sharing more updates in my next article.
The next big thing is the New Years 2019 celebrations that will happen across every known Hotel, Resort, Stand-along Restaurant, Pubs. The info about the same are published at multiple places and can get confusing. But if one needs to find about all events from one site, check out the link “Best New Year 2019 Events & Parties”.
Closing Thoughts
A traditional ritual followed in Western countries has now become one of the commonly celebrated events. It also gives the Hotel an opportunity to showcase their culinary prowess by cooking up a nice meal by means of Hi-Tea, Brunch or Dinner. I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of every Cake Mixing event in 2018 and looking forward to many more to come next year.
