Easter’s here again! I was amazed to see a recipe the other day for a chocolate Simnel cake. Chocolate cakes are great but to me, a Simnel cake is a fruit cake decorated with marzipan. The rich mixture was the traditional way of breaking the Lenten fast.
(You can, if you prefer, just buy a couple of packets of ready made marzipan instead).
Grease and line a nine inch cake tin. Make the marzipan by mixing the caster sugar and almonds with the eggs, lemon juice and essence. Knead to a firm ball, cover and then leave to rest. Melt the butter in a large pan with the sugar, dried fruit, cherries, apricots, citrus rinds and juice, stirring occasionally. When all the sugar has dissolved simmer gently for about ten minutes then leave to cool. Stir in the almonds.
Sift together the flour and the spices then gradually add to the fruit mixture with the eggs. Mix well, then spoon half of the mixture into the prepared cake tin. Smooth over the surface. Take half of the marzipan and using icing sugar to dust, roll out to a circle the same diameter as the tin. Place on top of the cake mixture in the tin. Spoon the remaining mixture over the marzipan and smooth the top. Bake for about 2 hours at 150C/300F/ Gas2 until the cake is a rich golden colour and is firm to the touch. Cool completely in the tin, then turn out and peel off the lining paper.
Take the remaining marzipan and cut off 3/4’s of it. Roll this out to the diameter of the cake as before. Take the remaining marzipan and divide into eleven even sized balls (to represent the twelve apostles minus Judas). Brush a little warmed apricot jam to act as a glue over the top of the cake then cover with the large round of marzipan. Crimp the edges to neaten.
Using small amounts of jam, stick the eleven balls around the edge of the top of the cake. Place the cake under a preheated grill until the top is lightly toasted. Tie the ribbon around the cake. This should give you about 16 slices.