WHAT’S Christmas without a proper home-made black cake to celebrate the festive season?But with so much to do, and so little time in which to do it at this time of year, who better to turn to for help than someone who, to coin a phrase, knows her way around ‘black-cake’.

Meet the spritely, upbeat Walterine Inniss, who has been in the business since she was a teenager, working alongside her mom, who’s now deceased.
Together, they baked up a storm, making the most sinfully delightful black cakes, pastries, mauby and ginger beer specially for ‘Steamer Day’, as Tuesdays were called back in the 1970s in good old Hosororo Hill, one of the many communities of Region One (Barima-Waini).
Back then, Walterine’s mom, a single-mother of seven was well known in the community as ‘The Black-Cake Lady’, a nickname she earned because the quality of her product was second to none. It’s a tradition young Walterine has voweed to carry on in her honour.
She makes one of the best black cakes you will have ever eaten: It is moist and rich, with all selected local ingredients of mix peel, cherries, nuts among other ingredients based on the customers’ choice, where even rum is added.
Walterine has been into black-cake making for about 11 years now on her own, having moved to the city in 1979; she does it as a side business, especially during the Christmas season.
The mother of one makes the ideal black cake from scratch, which, she swears, takes about a day to prepare. “It’s a meticulous process,” she says.
But just don’t take my word for it; you must try a sample of Inniss’s black cake. And once you do, I am sure you will be addicted, just as I’ve been for the past two years.
During the Christmas season, the 52-year-old who is also a professional caterer, facilitates orders for black cakes and can be contacted on cell phone number 644-6093.
Prices range from $3,000 for a half-pounder to $6,000 and up.

By Michel Outridge04