Spice cake

Spice cake is a type of cake that is traditionally flavored with a mixture of spices. The cake can be prepared in many varieties. Predominant flavorings include spices such as cinnamon, cloves, allspice, ginger, and nutmeg. In Medieval cuisine, a spice cake, also called spice bread, was a flavorful, sweetened yeast bread. They were typically sweetened with honey, as sugar was largely unavailable in Europe until the 1600s, and cooked over an open fire. By the 17th century, spice cake was something similar the modern raisin bread, usually having spices, sugar, dried fruit, eggs, and butter in the yeast dough. The sizes ranged from individual buns to ordinary loaves to the great cake, which was a very large cake, sometimes weighing more than 50 pounds that was baked for holidays and important celebrations. (Because these cakes often included both dried fruit and spices, most of them can also be classified as fruit cakes.) With the development of the sugar trade, spice cakes were still popular, and were coated in white icing on special occasions. French chefs hired by Charles II of England in the mid-1600s baked elaborate spice cakes coated in white icing. This decoration style became popular for wedding cakes, and having a white coating over a darker cake was the first meaning of a white cake.

Source: Wikipedia