Hello, today we’re chatting about Simnel cake! This is a lesser-known Easter treat that used to be hugely popular in the UK but, in recent years, I’ve noticed a big drop off in the popularity of fruitcake. I’m hear to fight back because I absolutely love fruit cake, especially fruitcake that involves marzipan so let’s get on with it…
Simnel cake is a fruit cake, made notable by a thick layer of almond paste or marzipan which is both baked into the cake and used to decorate it. Traditionally, it’s lighter than other fruitcakes and contains a combination of currents, raisins and mixed peel. The cake is decorated with eleven marzipan balls to represent Jesus’s eleven apostles (excluding Judas for obvious reasons), I am not religious and accidentally added twelve balls onto my cakes, oops, I hope this doesn’t mean my cakes are cursed!
One of the things that I love most about fruit cake is how easy it is to adjust to suit your preferences, simnel cake is traditionally lighter than something like Christmas cake but I like mine quite fruit heavy so I’ve gone ahead and added loads! You can use whatever dried fruit you like, in winter I like a lot of deep, dark fruits like prunes, dried figs and dates but as it’s spring I’ve opted for a slightly lighter variety, I like a lot of candied peel in my cake so I make it myself (the shop bought stuff tends to taste like wax) I use this method, if you’re buying it, I find the stuff in strips or big chunks tends to be tastier.
You can also switch out the alcohol. I like an orange liqueur, but nutty liqueurs like amaretto and Frangelico are also delicious, or you can go with something more classic like rum or brandy.
I prefer to make this cake over a few days to give the fruit plenty of time to soak up the lovely juices and to give the marzipan a chance to firm up but if you’re in a pinch you can definitely make it from start to finish in an afternoon. The best thing about this cake is that it gets better with age so you have at least two weeks to eat it, I think it’s best after about 3 days, not that I could resist starting mine before then!