In The Tudor Period

19. A festive cake was eaten on Twelfth Night, not Christmas Day

For the sumptuous banquet that marked Twelfth Night, an enormous cake was traditionally baked, containing dried fruit, flour, honey and spices. Inside the cake were a bean (or coin) and a pea. Slices were offered to guests as they arrived, men and women taking them from the right and left respectively; the lucky man and woman who found the bean and the pea would be King and Queen of the Bean or Pea for the evening and would then lead the singing, dancing and disports. At court, the lucky recipients were often selected in advance. Sadly, no recipe for Twelfth Night cake survives from before 1803.