What You Need To Know Before Ordering Whiskey Cake

Cake has seemed like a symbol of luxury throughout the course of history. Just take a look at how expensive sugar and dairy used to be before the modern food market made them more accessible. The ingredients, time, and energy needed to buy, make, and decorate cakes were once only had by the uber-wealthy classes of society. But some cakes do have a more humble, down to earth origin such as the classic pound cake, which All Recipes says was created in 18th century Britain and widely favored by the illiterate poor of the Commonwealth. 

Another cake favored by the common people was the fruitcake, which the Smithsonian claims was invented sometime during the Middle Ages in Europe and stuck around because dried fruit had become more available. Another thing that became more available during that time was booze. As you can probably guess, refrigerators weren't exactly running before the 20th century, so people had to get a little creative when storing their food. Booze was and still is, the way people killed the bacteria spoiling their fruitcakes (via The Spruce Eats). 

Over the centuries, and through many trials and errors, the traditional fruitcake fathered many different cake variations, one of which being the whiskey cake.