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Next: 24 to 26 Dec 2026

Christmas in the Caribbean

Black cake soaked in rum, sorrel drink with ginger and clove, pastelles, ham glazed with allspice and a pot of pepperpot.

A rum cake is a type of dessert cake which contains rum.
Photo: Kent Wang, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Spices for Christmas in the Caribbean

Caribbean Christmas is built on slow preparation. Fruit for black cake, a dark descendant of the English plum pudding, is soaked in rum for months, then baked with burnt sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and mixed spice. Sorrel, a drink of dried hibiscus calyces, is steeped with ginger, cloves and cinnamon; in Trinidad, parang music is sung and pastelles are filled with spiced meat, olives and capers. Jamaican jerk, built on allspice (pimento) and scotch bonnet, is also served. The holiday blends European, African, Indian and indigenous practice.

The spices

AllspicePimento, a Jamaican native, in jerk and ham.GingerSorrel drink.NutmegBlack cake and punch.CloveIn sorrel and ham.
About this page

Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Black cake" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

The weekly digest

Every Monday: seven spices you may not know, what is cooking this week, and one blend explained step by step.