Bolo de Mel

the Madeiran cane-molasses cake: a dark, dense, heavily spiced dough enriched with mel de cana and almonds, baked on the eighth of December, kept for a year, and broken apart by hand rather than cut

Origin: Portugal

From the journey of Sugar Cane.

The mel of bolo de mel is not honey but mel de cana, the dark cane molasses that Madeira has produced since the Portuguese planted sugar on the island in the fourteen-twenties and built there, with Genoese money and enslaved labour, the first plantation complex of the modern world. The cake is what the island did with its own by-product, and it is unlike anything on the Portuguese mainland: almost black, dense enough to be heavy in the hand, thick with almonds and walnuts and candied peel, and carrying a spicing of cinnamon, clove, fennel, and star anise that is closer to a medieval European gingerbread than to anything Iberian. Custom governs it closely. It is made on the eighth of December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, which opens the Madeiran Christmas; it is left to mature for at least a week and improves for months, keeping a year without difficulty; and it is never cut with a knife but broken apart with the hands, a rule that Madeirans observe seriously and explain variously as good luck, bad luck averted, or simply the way it has always been done. The traditional dough is leavened not with yeast or raising agents but with a piece kept back from the previous year's batch.

Ingredients

Cake

400 g plain flour
300 g mel de cana (cane molasses), or dark treacle
100 g unsalted butter
100 g lard (or a further 80 g butter)
80 g caster sugar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100 ml Madeira wine, or dark rum

Spice

2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground fennel seed
0.5 tsp ground star anise
0.5 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Fruit and Nuts

100 g blanched almonds, roughly chopped
80 g walnut pieces
100 g mixed candied peel, chopped
1 whole orange, zest finely grated
1 whole lemon, zest finely grated

To Finish

40 g whole blanched almonds and walnut halves, to decorate

Method

Warm the molasses, butter, lard, and sugar together in a pan over a low heat, stirring, until melted and smooth. Do not boil. Take off the heat and stir in all the ground spices and both zests, then leave to cool to blood heat.
Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl, pour in the cooled molasses mixture and the Madeira, and work to a soft, sticky, very dark dough.
Work in the chopped almonds, walnuts, and candied peel. Cover the bowl and leave at cool room temperature overnight, or for at least 12 hours.
Heat the oven to 170°C (150°C fan). Divide the dough between two greased and lined 20 cm round tins, smooth the tops with a wet hand, and press the whole almonds and walnut halves into the surface in a pattern.
Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until firm at the edges and only just set in the centre; a skewer should come out sticky rather than clean. Cool completely in the tins, then wrap in greaseproof paper and store in a tin for at least a week before eating.

Notes

Mel de cana is sold by Portuguese grocers and online, and it is worth seeking out, since it is milder and fruitier than British black treacle; treacle works but gives a slightly more bitter, more mineral cake, and a mixture of two parts treacle to one of golden syrup comes closer. The traditional leavening is a piece of dough held back from the previous year, which Madeiran families pass down and which gives a faint sourness; the bicarbonate here is the ordinary domestic substitute. The cake keeps for a year in a tin and genuinely improves for the first three or four months, so it is worth making both quantities and putting one away. Serve it in broken pieces with coffee, with a glass of Madeira, or with a slice of the island's soft queijo fresco.

The Gastrographer

Name: Bolo de Mel
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 14 h
Yield: 16
Cuisine: Portugal
Ingredients: 400 g plain flour; 300 g mel de cana (cane molasses), or dark treacle; 100 g unsalted butter; 100 g lard (or a further 80 g butter); 80 g caster sugar; 2 tsp ground cinnamon; 1 tsp ground cloves; 1 tsp ground fennel seed; 0.5 tsp ground star anise; 0.5 tsp freshly grated nutmeg; 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda; 100 ml Madeira wine, or dark rum; 100 g blanched almonds, roughly chopped; 80 g walnut pieces; 100 g mixed candied peel, chopped; 1 whole orange, zest finely grated; 1 whole lemon, zest finely grated; 40 g whole blanched almonds and walnut halves, to decorate

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control