Simnel cake is a delicious fruit cake rich in marzipan, traditionally eaten over the Easter period. Like most British winter and early spring foods, a Simnel cake contains lots of dried fruit, but it is much lighter than a boozy Christmas cake. There are lots of different recipes online, but Nigella Lawson's is super simple to make.
The recipe notes said: "Originally, this cake was made for Mothering Sunday, but it has, for a long, long time, been an essential Easter confection, the marzipan balls on top representing the apostles: 11 in total, as, for understandable reasons, Judas is persona non grata. I make this a very light fruit cake, totally different in taste and texture from the damp, dark offerings of Christmas."
Nigella Lawson's Simnel cake recipeIngredients:
- 100g glace cherries
- 500g mixed dried fruit
- 175g soft unsalted butter
- 175g caster sugar
- Zest of one lemon
- 225g plain flour
- One teaspoon of baking powder
- Half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- Quarter teaspoon of ground ginger
- 25g ground almonds
- Three large eggs
- Two tablespoons of milk
- One kilogram of yellow marzipan, to decorate
- Icing sugar, for rolling
- One tablespoon of apricot jam, melted
- One egg white, optional
Method:
Take everything you need out of the fridge so it can reach room temperature before preheating the oven to 170°C/150°C Fan, then grease and line a 20cm cake tin with baking paper.
Chop the cherries very finely and add them to the remaining fruit. Cream the butter and sugar, then add the lemon zest. Measure the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and ground almonds into a bowl, then stir to combine.
Add one of the eggs to the creamed butter and sugar, with two tablespoons of dry flour and spice mix, then beat in the remaining eggs in the same way. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients, then the milk. Finally, fold in the fruit.
Dust the surface with some icing sugar and then roll out about 400g of the marzipan. Cut it into a 20cm circle, which will fit in the middle of the cake later.
Spoon half of the fruit cake mixture into the cake tin, smoothing it down with a spatula, then lay the marzipan circle on top.
Spoon the remaining mixture into the tin on top of the marzipan circle, then smooth the top again. Bake for 30 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 150C/130C for another 1.5 hours, or until the cake has risen and is firm on top. Let it cool completely on a rack before you spring it open.
Take the cake out of the tin and roll out another 400g of marzipan into a circle. Paint the top of the cake with the melted apricot jam, and then stick it on.
Make 11 apostle balls out of the remaining marzipan, roughly 2.5cm in size. Beat the egg white until it's a bit frothy and loosened up a little, and use that as glue to stick the apostles around the edge of the cake.
Nigella added: "Now for the bit I love, but you can ignore altogether. Paint the whole of the cake with egg white, and then blow-torch the marzipan so that it scorches slightly, giving a beauteously burnished look."
