Spitcake + Fruitcake = Spurftcake

There's an old medieval recipe for trayne roste at Historic Food dot Com! It strikes me as a hybrid spitcake, in that it's prepared a bit like baumkuchen and a bit like chimney cakes. A prepared stripe is wrapped around a spit, like chimney cakes (though here the stripe is made of fruits and nuts, not yeast cake). Then batter is dribbled onto the cake while it turns by a fire, like baumkuchen!

Historic Food claims the trayne roste is a direct ancestor of the gâteau à la broche, which is neat if it's true. Blanched almonds and dried nuts are threaded on a thread as long as a man is tall. That gets coiled around the spit and drizzled with a batter made of flour, wine or ale, ginger, sugar, saffron, cloves, salt, and other spices. AND THAT'S HOW YOU TRAYNE ROSTE.



A trayne roste, nearly done. [source]



Slices showing the cake anatomy. [ibid.]