Hello everybody, it’s me, Dave, welcome to my recipe page. Today, I will show you a way to make a special dish, simnel cake. It is one of my favorites. For mine, I am going to make it a little bit tasty. This is gonna smell and look delicious.
Simnel cake is a light fruitcake formerly eaten during the pre-Easter period in the United Kingdom, Ireland and some other countries but has become a traditional cake for Easter Sunday. It is distinguished by two layers of almond paste or marzipan, one in the middle and one on top. The top layer is capped by a circle of "eggs" made of the same paste, and is lightly browned under a grill.
Simnel cake is one of the most well liked of current trending meals in the world. It is simple, it is fast, it tastes yummy. It’s enjoyed by millions daily. They are fine and they look fantastic. Simnel cake is something which I have loved my whole life.
To begin with this particular recipe, we have to prepare a few ingredients. You can have simnel cake using 30 ingredients and 10 steps. Here is how you cook that.
The ingredients needed to make Simnel cake:
- Prepare For the marzipan:
- Take 100 g ground almonds
- Get 100 g icing sugar, plus extra to dust
- Make ready 2 free-range egg yolks
- Get 2 tbsp. lemon juice
- Get For the cake:
- Make ready 5 tbsp. milk
- Make ready 1 good pinch of saffron
- Prepare 150 g raisins
- Make ready 150 g sultanas
- Prepare 40 g brandy, vin santo or white rum
- Take 50 g bleached almonds
- Prepare 175 g plain flour
- Get 1 tsp baking powder
- Prepare 45 g ground almonds
- Prepare 1/2 tsp fine salt
- Take 2 tsp mixed spice
- Take 180 g butter, at room temperature
- Prepare 180 g soft, light brown sugar
- Prepare 3 eggs
- Get 1 tbsp. golden syrup
- Make ready zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
- Make ready 50 g glacé cherries, halved
- Get 50 g mixed peel
- Make ready apricot jam, to brush over the cake
- Get For the icing:
- Make ready 30 g caster sugar
- Make ready 25 g butter
- Get 20 g lemon juice
- Take 110 g icing sugar
Sally toasts the marzipan with a blowtorch just before serving to give the cake a golden finish. If you don't have access to a blowtorch, you could place the cake under a grill for a similar effect. Simnel cake is a light fruitcake with delicious dried fruits and topped with marzipan and apricot jam. It is a classic holiday cake popularly served during Easter in certain European countries.
Instructions to make Simnel cake:
- Put the raisins and sultanas in a mixing bowl or a small zip lock bag. Heat up the spirits to almost boiling, pour it into the fruit and mix well. Seal the bag or cover the bowl and leave for a few hours, best overnight, to soak.
- Butter and line with parchment a 20cm deep cake tin. Prepare another disc of parchment the size of the tin to place on top of the cake, to stop it from burning. Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/gas 2.
- Warm up the milk and put the saffron strands into it to soak. Toast the almonds in a dry frying pan or in hot oven on a baking tray for 10-15 minutes until they turn golden. Cool and chop roughly.
- Mix the flour with the baking powder, ground almonds, salt and mixed spice and put to one side. Beat the butter in an electric mixer, add the sugar and beat well until the mixture turns pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating continuously, alternating with a little flour mix. Beat in the rest of the flour, golden syrup, zest and the milk with saffron.
- Drain the soaked fruit if necessary – but all the liquid should have been absorbed. Stir them into the cake batter together with the chopped almonds, peel and glace cherries.
- Take the marzipan out of the fridge and roll it out on a surface dusted with icing sugar to a disc the size of your tin. Spoon half the cake batter into the tin, place the marzipan disc in and spoon the rest of the cake mix on top.
- Smooth the surface with a spatula and place the parchment disc on top.
- Bake the cake for about 1 ¾ - 2 hours until a skewer inserted in the middle (not too deep because of the marzipan layer) comes out clean. Cool in the tin, unmould and brush the top and sides with the apricot jam warmed up slightly in a small pan.
- To make the icing, bring the butter, caster sugar and lemon juice to the boiling point then pour over the icing sugar. Whisk to a smooth paste, add some yellow food colouring for extra Easter cheer.
- Spread the icing over the top of the cake with a palette knife, making sure no crumbs mix into the icing and spoil the effect. Leave to set.
We love making different kinds of holiday desserts for the kids and family to try something new. Bake this classic Easter simnel cake. I used to make one for my Mum every year, when I lived in England! Traditionally made to mark Mothering Sunday, this cake is also known as an Easter Cake; Simnel cake has a fascinating cultural heritage with roots that stretch back to the Romans and Athenians. In Britain, known as the Shrewsbury Simnel, it is simply made.
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