Cake celebrates 100th birthday

MINNEAPOLIS, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- A cake in Minneapolis just celebrated its 100th birthday with a party attended by about 120, ABC News reports.

"Usually, you throw a birthday party and bring a cake, but this party was for the cake," Cake owner Pierre Girard told ABCNews.com.

The cake was a gag gift from a friend, a retired antique dealer, in 1994. When an elderly woman died, an attorney handling an estate sale gave it to the dealer, Girard said.

"They wrapped it up and gave it to me and I brought it home from that dinner and put it on my dining room table," Girard told ABC. "When I put Christmas things away, I just couldn't put it away."

Then he took a closer look at the writing on the box -- "Xmas cake baked in Dec. 1911" from the Rose Garden Florist in Detroit. On the bottom of the box -- "Xmas cake baked in year 1911 by my mother's brother Alex, died Dec. 27. Was operated on Xmas Day."

After some research, Girard said, he believes pastry was an English-inspired Victorian cake.

"They used to have a Christmas cake that they would eat and then let it dry out and put it away until the following year when they would soak it in brandy or rum and rebuild the cake adding back on to the layers."

Girard said he believes that after the death in the family that used to rebuild the cake yearly, they instead chose to preserve it by soaking it in alcohol.

Girard said, "You can smell a spice smell to it. It doesn't smell bad. It's hard as a rock, with a cinnamon clove type smell."

ABC said a second cake won't be celebrating its centennial for 30 years, but is being auctioned off for its 70th birthday.