Caribbean black cake may look humble, but its craggy, unfrosted surface conceals a sumptuous confection that earns its place of honor on the Christmas dinner table. It takes time to make; dried fruit soaked for days, weeks, or more in rum and brandy anchor its flavor profile. Almonds give it substance. Burnt sugar lends the dark color. There are surprising ingredients, like Manischewitz, which is often substituted for brandy. While the recipe probably began life as a variation on the plum pudding imported by British colonizers, black cake is emphatically its own sweet, dense, intoxicating, island-spiced, painstakingly assembled, culturally hybrid thing.