Spit cake

A spit cake is a European-styled cake made with layers of dough or batter deposited, one at a time, onto a tapered cylindrical rotating spit. The dough is baked by an open fire or a special oven, rotisserie-style. Generally, spit cakes are associated with celebrations such as weddings and Christmas. The spit can be dipped in a thin dough, or the dough can be poured or rolled on the spit. This cake group may have originated in the classical era, around 400 BC, when similar large cakes were prepared on spits for Dionysiac feasts. In the Deipnosophistae, the Ancient Greek writer Athenaeus (c. 170 – c. 230) describes some of the bread, cakes, and pastries available in classical times. Among the breads mentioned are griddle cakes, honey-and-oil bread, mushroom-shaped loaves covered in poppy seeds, and the military specialty of rolls baked on a spit. The cooking process is similar for all the spit cakes: they all consist of a dough applied on a spit which is slowly rotated over an open fire or other heat source. One way of doing this is when the spit is dipped several times in a bowl with liquid dough or the thin dough is poured on a spit. Depending on the dough's consistency and the spit's speed, it will form a layer on the spit, and when very runny, it will drop, thus producing small spikes, giving the cake a coral-like appearance. The resulting cake consists of many layers of cooked dough, and when cut is shown to consist of rings – hence another name, "tree cake". Alternatively, the dough is wrapped around the spit as spiral threads. In some varieties of the cake, while they maintain the shape of the spit cake, the rings are actually baked separately and attached to each other with icing. Some spit cakes have a smooth surface. Others, like spettekaka and šakotis, have an irregular shape. Variations on the basic process are found in many countries and cultures; what they have in common is that the laborious and time-consuming process produces a cake suitable for special occasions, such as weddings or Christmas feasts.