Bolo pretu ('black cake') is the grand celebration cake of Curaçao, related to the Caribbean black cake / British plum pudding, with dried fruit steeped in rum for weeks or months.
Cut a thin slice of bolo pretu and it is near-black, dense, and moist, intensely boozy and fruity, the burnt sugar lending a deep bittersweet edge. Bite: rich and heavy like a plum pudding, the rum-soaked prunes and raisins jammy and concentrated, warm with mixed spice, the caramel almost smoky. A grand, potent celebration cake — Curaçao's wedding and Christmas centerpiece.
Steeping the dried fruit in rum for weeks plumps and concentrates it into a boozy paste; burnt-sugar caramel gives the near-black color and bittersweet depth. A long, low bake sets the dense, fruit-heavy batter through, and 'feeding' it with rum afterward keeps it moist for months — a keeping cake like British black cake.
Variations
With cashews. Fed with more rum over months. With cherry brandy. Darker (more burnt sugar). With candied peel. Smaller individual cakes.
On the Palate
Where Bolo Pretu sits in the Curaçaoan flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 12
How it's made
8 steps · 60 min active · 120 min waiting
- 110 min
Weeks ahead: steep 300 g prunes, raisins, and currants in rum and falernum (here, soak overnight at minimum).
- 26 min
Blend the soaked fruit with its liquor into a dark paste.
- 38 min
Make a burnt-sugar caramel: cook 100 g sugar to a deep, near-black brown; cool slightly.
- 48 min
Cream 200 g butter with 200 g sugar; beat in 5 eggs one at a time.
- 56 min
Fold in 250 g flour, mixed spice, the fruit paste, and the burnt-sugar caramel.
- 63 min
Pour into a lined cake tin.
- 792 min
Bake low at 150°C for 90 min until set and very dark.
- 86 min
Cool, then 'feed' with more rum; serve in thin slices.
