“I’ve been baking for as long as I can remember,” shares Venese Spence. “My grandma started the tradition with baking in my family. She would bake puddings and a cake from any fruit in season for church on Saturdays. Every Christmas, I would help with licking the bowl until eventually I was old enough to start measuring and then mixing along with her. My mom and I currently share many of these moments weekly, and at times my grandma when she’s up for it, during the holiday season,” she adds.

Her solo baking act was a Christmas cake for a practical at the Montego Bay Community College for the advanced baking class. She’s not looked back!

The most challenging aspect of baking, she informs,is the preparation. “You have to be organised and prepared as, if you miss an ingredient or add too much, it alters the finished product”.

She deems her Christmas cakes special because of the time and effort put into preparation. “My fruits are normally soaked for almost a year, so to ensure the best flavours I invest in getting the best ingredients and equipment to get the best outcome. My cakes are always packaged nicely and gift-wrapped with twirly ribbons and delivered with a smile as it feels like I’m giving a part of my heart,”, she notes.

Red Label Wine is her secret weapon. “We all know fruitcakes need fruits, but the wine is important, not just in the preparation of my cakes but also on the finished products to give it that ‘tun up flava’,” she concludes.

Fruitcake

Ingredients:

8 oz butter

8 oz sugar

8 oz flour

4 eggs

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp almond flavouring

2 tbsp Grace browning

1/2 tsp mixed spice

2 cups Red Label Wine

1 cup rum

2 cups soaked fruits (cherries, currants, raisins, prunes)

Method:

Grease 10” pan and set aside. Preheat oven to 180°C.

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time until combined.

Add vanilla and almond flavouring.

Combine dry ingredients and fold into creamed mixture with soaked fruits, browning, rum and Red Label Wine.

Scrape into greased pan and place on middle rack in oven. Bake for about an hour-and-a-half or until skewer comes out clean.

Sprinkle rum and Red Label Wine on hot cake once removed from the oven.

Allow to cool, then remove from pan and serve.