Weekender has teamed up with one of the island’s top chefs, George Fowler from Calypso Grill, to show you how to easily make Simnel cake, a British tradition that dates back hundreds of years.
A light fruit cake studded throughout with delicious marzipan (almond paste) nuggets, with a marzipan layer on top, Simnel cake is mainly eaten during Easter time in Britain and Ireland. It was originally made for the middle Sunday of Lent, also known as Mothering Sunday, or Mother’s Day in the U.K. (celebrated earlier in the year than in the U.S.)
As a Mothering Sunday tradition, young girls in service would make one to be taken home to their mothers on their day off.
There are different stories as to where the name Simnel came from. Records dating back to 1226 refer to “bread made into a simnel,” which meant the finest white bread, from the Latin “simila” or “fine flour.” Another popular legend attributes the invention of the Simnel cake to Lambert Simnel, who lays claim to its fame. But there were references to the cake hundreds of years before he was born.
Whatever the history, you will be sure to love this densely sweet cake, crammed full of dried fruits and a little surprise ingredient that keeps the cake wonderfully moist and particularly scrumptious.
Ingredients
- 4 ounces whole almonds
- 1 pound 2 ounces golden marzipan (almond paste) – you can buy this from Foster’s Waitrose selection
- 8 ounces plain flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 rounded teaspoon mixed spice (use a mix of ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves)
- 5 ounces light soft brown sugar
- 5 ounces butter, well softened
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 3 large eggs, beaten
- 1 egg yolk, beaten
- 15 ounce jar mincemeat (the secret ingredient! – you can buy this from Kirk’s, Foster’s or Hurleys – look for it in the baking aisle)
- 12 ounces mixed dried fruit, chopped (George uses a Sun-Made mix of dried apricots, peaches, plums and apples)
- 2 ounces whole candied peel, chopped
- grated zest 1 orange
- grated zest 1 lemon
- icing (powdered) sugar for dusting
- 10 ounce pack ready-to-roll fondant icing (you can buy this from Kirk’s)
- 1 dessert spoon red currant jelly
To make
Preheat the oven to 400 F in order to gently roast the almonds; then lower to 300 F to bake the cake.
This cake is simple to make, using the “all-in-one” method, Fowler advises, but you do need to undertake a little bit of prep work. It’s important to lightly toast the almonds, Fowler says, so that they release a toasty flavor and give an extra crunch. Begin by spreading the almonds on a baking sheet and roasting for about 10 minutes until they start to turn brown. Reduce oven temperature to 300 F, and when the almonds are cool, chop them roughly.
Next, prepare the marzipan (almond paste). Chop the block in half and wrap and chill half for later. Chop the remaining half into half-inch cubes and carefully toss them in 1 tablespoon of the flour from the cake mix.
“This is a clever trick to stop the marzipan from falling to the bottom of the cake during baking,” Fowler advises. “The marzipan also retains its nice shape as well.”
To make the cake, it is important to first sift the flour, baking powder and spice.
“Flour sits on supermarket shelves for a long time, so it’s important to sift it to let the air in again and breathe new life into your flour. This results in a much lighter cake,” Fowler explains.
Place the flour mix into the bowl of an electric mixer, then add all the ingredients except the marzipan, icing (powdered) sugar, fondant icing, red currant jelly and egg yolk. In particular, adding the mincemeat gives the cake a delicious moistness.
Put your mixer on slow, and after about a minute put it on a slightly faster mix until all the ingredients are well incorporated. This should take about 2 to 3 minutes in total. Next, gently fold in the squares of marzipan and any remaining flour. Fowler does this by hand with a wooden spoon as it’s important not to squash the marzipan pieces too much.
Carefully spoon the mixture into an 8-inch round loose-based cake tin which has been sprayed with cooking-oil spray. You can also line the tin with baking parchment if you want, but Fowler is confident that a cooking-oil spray will suffice. Level the surface and then drop the tin down on the counter a couple of times to get rid of any air bubbles and ensure it’s perfectly flat.
Fowler bakes the cake in the center of the oven for two hours at 300 F. The cake is done when the center feels springy when lightly pressed. After removing the cake from the oven, leave it in the tin for 30 minutes before turning it out on to a wire rack to cool.
To decorate
Conventionally, 11 marzipan balls are used to decorate the cake. The balls are supposed to represent the 12 apostles, minus Judas. This tradition developed late in the Victorian era, and was a change from the mid-Victorian tradition of decorating cakes with preserved fruits and flowers. Fowler’s pastry chef, Chef Lala, has opted for the flowers route but added a lovely twist to his decoration.
Begin by rolling out the fondant icing on a lightly floured work surface to the same size as the top of the cake. Then brush the top of the cake with red currant jelly and fit the icing on top of the cake, pressing it securely all round. Cut the edges so that you have a neat fit. Then go back to your reserved marzipan and roll it out to a rectangle about 9 inches by 6 inches. Cut the rectangle into 12 long strips about half an inch wide to make a lattice topping.
Create the latticework by laying half the strips across the cake, leaving about a three-quarter-inch gap between each strip. Then thread the remainder under and over the strips lying on the cake. When you are finished, neaten the edges to fit the exact diameter of the cake, and brush the strips with egg yolk. In order to give the marzipan a delicious toasty flavor, adding an extra golden topping, either place the cake under a very hot grill for about 30 seconds to gently caramelize the marzipan, or use a chef’s blow torch to the same effect. Once this has been completed, tie a ribbon around the cake and decorate with some Cayman flowers. Your beautiful Simnel cake is now ready to be devoured.
To store, wrap the cake first in baking parchment and then in foil and store in the fridge.
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