Ooty welcomed the Christmas season early with a traditional cake-mixing ceremony at a private hotel, where staff and tourists blended dry fruits, wines, and spices to prepare the classic plum cake mix.
Ooty : The festive spirit arrived early in the scenic Nilgiri Hills as a private hotel in Ooty hosted its traditional Christmas cake-mixing ceremony on Monday.
Hotel staff and tourists gathered to mark the beginning of the Christmas season by blending a rich assortment of dry fruits, including almonds, cashews, raisins, dates and dried cherries, with a variety of wines and aromatic spices. The mixture will later be used to make the traditional plum cake that symbolises warmth and joy during the holidays.
“Today is the cake mixing ceremony, which is very important for the Christmas season. We welcome it from today itself, where we mix dry fruits, alcoholic beverages and spices to make a flavourful fruit mix. From this, we make the Christmas plum cake, which during the Christmas season gives warmth and energy to your body. For Nilgiris, it is important because this tradition was taught to us by the Europeans, and people who come to this cold climate enjoy these wonderful plum cakes. People visit Nilgiris for this, and that is the significance of this cake,” said Surender, a chef at the hotel.
Tourists also joined in the joyful preparations, immersing themselves in the festive spirit.
“It was a wonderful event. We had been waiting to participate in this. For the past four to five years, we had been waiting, so we thought this time we should definitely make it. We followed up with them for the past two weeks, and then we got this opportunity. It was a wonderful experience,” said Maria, a tourist.
After the ceremony, the blended mixture was sealed in containers to mature for 45 to 50 days. It will eventually be baked into a massive 200-kilogram Christmas cake, which will be served to visitors and the public during the festive celebrations in December.
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