Twelfth Night

     After a long winter's nap (aka a very busy but delightful holiday season), I've decided to get myself in gear and back to Belletrist. This evening the decorations are down and I've decided to celebrate the end of the Christmas season by baking a Twelfth Night cake.
     Twelfth Night (January 5 or 6) marks the end of the twelve days of Christmas and Epiphany, when the wise men made their visit to Jesus. I've always been rather fond of it since I played Feste in Twelfth Night during college.
     In several areas of the Gulf Coast, particularly Louisiana, the custom is to bake a King Cake to mark Epiphany. In colonial America (my particular area of interest), the tradition was to take down Christmas decorations by Twelfth Night and to use any unspoiled fruit from those decorations to make a cake. If you have ever visited Colonial Williamsburg and seen the beautiful wreaths with apples, nuts and oranges, they are exactly what was used to make Twelfth Night cakes.
      Another fun tradition surrounding the Twelfth Night cake dates back to Tudor England. A bean was baked into the cake and the finder was declared the king for the night, and could make rules that would last until midnight when everything was put back to order.
      If you are interested in the recipe for a traditional Twelfth Night cake, you can view one here. For my recipe, since I had also promised my husband a chocolate treat, I modified Martha Stewart's classic chocolate bundt cake recipe. To make it more authentic, I added ground cinnamon, chopped dried apricots, and golden raisins. I plan to top it with a chocolate and Bermudan rum glaze once it cools.
      Don't worry, I didn't forget the bean. I have a dried lima tied on the end of a ribbon to insert for more child-friendly discovery, but hopefully he'll be sleeping long before his rule ends at midnight.