Everything found will be returned to its original resting place, in accordance with the site’s status as an Antarctic Specially Protected Area.

An emailed statement from the trust on Sunday said: “Because the cake was one of nearly 1,500 artifacts removed from Antarctica’s first building, there are very strict rules around its handling, and it is now being stored carefully before it is returned to the hut (once the building is restored).”

The recipe for preserving the fruitcake’s container, according to the trust, involves rust removal, chemical stabilization, coating of the tin remnants, deacidification of the tin label and repairing of the paper wrapper and tin label.

The cake itself? Untouched.

There is documentation showing that Scott took cake made by Huntley & Palmers, headquartered in Reading, England, with him on his explorations, said the trust, a nonprofit organization that is in the business of “inspiring explorers.”

Matthew Williams, manager of the Reading Museum, which has in its collection biscuits that came back from Scott’s supply huts, said in an email that Huntley & Palmers was the principal suppliers of biscuits for the Terra Nova Antarctic expedition.

The treats were specially made to the following formula:

“Flour 80 lb, rice gluten 13 3/4 lb, wheat meal 20 lb, sugar 7 1/2 lb, lard 2 1/2 lb, salt 10 oz, sodium bicarbonate 2 1/2 oz, water, 40 lb. They were baked to a final water content of 5%, and each biscuit weighed 2 oz.”

[You can find The New York Times’ collection of fruitcake recipes here.]

The museum’s website said, “Modern research has shown that the polar party’s daily ration of 4,100 calories was 800 calories short, and their diet was deficient in vitamins, as well as energy-producing elements.”

Mr. Williams is well acquainted with tales of the fruitcake’s longevity. He wrote, “We often get the public coming forward with preserved H&P fruitcakes from weddings and christenings.”

There are those who believe that fruitcake is forever, and Scott’s may continue to stand the test of time. As for the explorer, his second trip to the South Pole was ill-fated. He and his companions made the arduous trip to the bottom of the world, only to find that a Norwegian team had beaten them to it by 33 days. On their way back to base in 1912, trekking through severe weather and struck by frostbite, starvation and exposure, the British explorers all perished.