We could call this mummified wonder “Old Spice” — at 100 years of age, the cake qualifies. And there’s definitely a hint of spice emanating from its layers.
The surprise — after the age — may be that it’s a spice cake, not a fruit cake. At least that’s what Pierre Girard, of Golden Valley, thinks, based on its faint fragrance.
His friends found the cake in 1992 on a closet shelf in St. Louis Park. They were doing an estate sale assessment, prompted by the death of an elderly resident, originally from Canada, who had died without heirs. The friends passed it along to him as a gag gift, never expecting that he would hang on to it.
The cake was packed within a six-sided florist box with the handwritten inscription, “XMAS CAKE BAKED IN DEC. 1911” on the lid. On the bottom of the box, there was more handwritten inscription: “Xmas Cake Baked in Year 1911 by my Mother’s Brother Alex died Dec. 27. Was operated on Xmas Day.”
I once tried to bake a load of bread that came out hard as a rock—-literally. I used it as a door stop for years.