Bolo de mel: Madeira dark molasses cake

Madeira, Portugal

The Christmas cake of Madeira — a dark, dense, highly spiced cake of molasses (mel de cana, sugar cane molasses), flour, butter, lard, spices (cinnamon, cloves, anise, fennel), dried fruits, and nuts, kept for months or years in a cool cellar. Bolo de mel is made in November for Christmas, broken (never sliced — it must be broken by hand) in early January, and the tradition dictates that if any remains from the previous year, it should be finished before the new year's cake is opened. The recipe is unchanged from the 16th century, when sugar cane was Madeira's primary export. The molasses — the by-product of sugar production — went into the bolo that workers took home from the engenhos (sugar mills).

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