Robynne's Cake

#2 - Food as symbolism.

I want to talk about a dessert that has gotten some flack recently. A friend of mine said it had an off-putting medicinal aftertaste. Editors of a popular local food blog didn’t enjoy it either, also calling it “medicinal” and “earthy.”

I think, to love this dessert is to understand it.

Robynne’s Cake, named after chef and co-owner of Mille Fete bakery and Fete restaurant Robynne Maiʻi, is a dark chocolate rum-raisin cake made with Jamaican black rum and ‘ulu. Dark Jamaican Rum is a potent blend of pot-still and column-still rums, aged for at least two years in charred American white oak barrels. It’s not a sipper, it’s a tiki drink topper. Its bittersweet notes of licorice and molasses give it a somewhat (you guessed it) medicinal quality. It’s the traditional rum used in rum-raisin cake, known as black cake in the Caribbean, which was invented in the Caribbean after British colonizers began crashing there in the 18th century.

The story goes, that the British figgy pudding recipe was modified so it could withstand the heat and humidity of the islands. Pre-contact, people living in the Caribbean islands ate mainly fruits and vegetables with no need for preservation methods. But after the British set up shop with their sugarcane plantations, and began introducing dishes from their homeland, sugar and alcohol – two things the Caribbean now had in abundance (alcohol being rum, a byproduct of sugarcane processing) – became popular preservatives. In Jamaica, rum-raisin cake is served at weddings, Christmas, and other special occasions. It is often given as a gift as a symbol of friendship and respect, as it is a labor of love.

In addition to preserving the cake’s shelf life, the rum also did something else. It gave a bland cake depth of flavor, like adding red wine to beef stew or tomato paste to bolognese. Robynne’s Cake has immense depth of flavor, not only from the rum but also from the dark chocolate, another bittersweet ingredient. `Ulu also adds to the taste, and like alcohol, some people like the flavor of ʻulu some don’t. But like the rum in rum-raisin cake, `ulu also serves a purpose for this cake: it replaces white flour.

To me, this cake is complex, rich and boozy. And at Fete it is served warm with chocolate sauce, chocolate-‘ulu streusel and a dense and creamy kulolo ice cream (made with poi and coconut milk), which adds contrasting textures and temperatures. The cake, sauce and ice cream are all spiked with Coruba Jamaican dark rum, giving them a kind of “adults only” sophistication that satisfies the kind of palate that would appreciate an Italian Amaro.

But let’s go even deeper into why I love this dessert. ʻUlu and kalo are the most culturally important food crops in Hawaiʻi and the most sustainable to grow. Maiʻi sources ʻulu from Hawaiʻi ʻUlu Cooperative for the cake and poi from Kualoa Ranch for the kulolo ice cream. I’d be remiss if I also didn’t make the connection amongst the two island cultures represented in this dish. Like the Caribbean, Hawaiʻi also has a legacy of sugarcane plantations. There is also lots of rum produced in Hawaiʻi. ʻUlu and kalo also grow in the Caribbean – Africans introduced kalo and the British introduced ‘ulu (that’s a whole other story in itself). Robynne’s Cake could easily be made in the Caribbean with the same ingredients used here in Hawaiʻi.

To me, Robynne’s Cake represents decolonization. It is a colonial cake made with Native Hawaiian staple crops. An island adaption of an island adaption. It’s not only a plate of decadence, it is advocacy for food security and food sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, made by a thoughtful chef who practices what she preaches: supporting local.