Looking after your cake
It has come a long way to get to you. A few small things make it taste the way it did in the kitchen, and one of them is simply not eating all of it on the first day.
Where to keep it
In its tin, or wrapped well, somewhere cool and out of the sun. Bengaluru afternoons are warmer than the cake would like. The fridge is fine and buys you longer, as long as it is properly wrapped, and it is worth taking the cake out an hour before you cut it so it comes back to itself.
How long it keeps
About a week at room temperature in its tin or wrapped well, and longer in the fridge. It is a cake built on soaked fruit, so it gets a little better for the first couple of days.
How to cut it
A long, thin knife, wiped clean between slices. Cut thinner than you think: it is a dense cake and a thin slice eats better than a thick one. If it has been in the fridge, let it warm up first, or the knife drags.
Day three
It is worth keeping a couple of slices back. The fruit and the spice settle into each other over the first few days and the cake tastes rounder on day three than it did on the day it arrived. That is the reason these cakes were made this way long before anybody had a fridge.
If it is a gift
It travels well in its tin. If it is going somewhere else in the city, keep it out of a hot car boot and hand it over the same day if you can.
Anything else
If something does not look right, tell us. We would genuinely rather know, and we can usually work out what happened. Message us and a person reads it.