A Kerala Christmas season always includes a plum cake and throughout the state people begin the preparations well in advance of the holiday itself. It’s considered auspicious to invite friends to mix the ingredients that must “marinate” for 2 months prior to the actual preparation of the cakes. Cardamom County’s Cake mixing ceremony took place yesterday, 16th October. It’s a tradition at the hotel to welcome the holiday season with a fruit soaking ceremony that included staff and guests from around the world.

Property Manager Naveen Mohan described the event perfectly:

This Cake mixing ceremony happened at Raxa Collective, Cardamom County, Thekkady yesterday. The warm, friendly staff of the hotel led everyone to the ceremony. It’s a tradition at the hotel to welcome the holiday season with a fruit soaking ceremony ahead of Christmas. There were massive steel basins with candied ginger strips lining the bottom, and huge trays filled with fruit – raisins, black currants, candied orange peel, candied cherries, etc. And of course the all important ‘spirit of the season‘ in bottles – wine, rum and whiskey to soak the fruit. To set the ceremony off, we were each handed gloves, aprons and chefs hats. We set to work with handfuls of fruit ceremoniously dumped into the steel basins and started mixing the fruit. Once all the fruit was in and well mixed, ladles of the liquor were flambéed over the dried fruit and then the bottles were emptied in one by one.

That done, Chef got his merry band of men in to complete the mixing as it was now all down to muscle power! A load of fun and a load of work, all amidst great cheer and fervour. The holiday season was rung in under the watchful eye of the Whole RAXA Collective Cardamom County Team. The fruit is now be placed in a secure place to soak in all liquid and mature beautifully in time for Christmas, and will then be used by the in-house bakery to make plum cakes, puddings etc. I loved the tradition and thought it was a novel way to ring in the festive season. The great thing was the camaraderie all around, and the whole-hearted manner in which the Management involved everyone in the ceremony, including all their staffs and guests. We had an full of guests at the hotel from across the world and each one was invited to join in, which they did happily! There was lots of cheer, loads of mixing and loads of cameras clicking!!