Easter Simnel Cake

2 hours - 40 minutes
to cook

What is Simnel cake?

A rich fruit cake which includes lumps of marzipan stirred into the mixture that melts and combines with all the other flavours during cooking. It is then finished off with more marzipan. As it’s now popular at Easter, sugared primroses make a good decoration, see the Sugared Flowers recipe below.

The Delia Online Cookery School: Watch how to roast, chop and prepare nuts in our video. Press the recipe image to play.

A picture of Delia's Cakes

This recipe is from Delia's Cakes. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see questions Lindsey has answered on this recipe


  • method
  • Ingredients

Method

First of all, when the oven is pre-heated you need to roast the almonds, just spread them out on a tray and pop them into the oven near the centre for 8 minutes – use a timer to help you remember.

You can also watch how to roast nuts in our video, just click the recipe image to play.

Then cut the marzipan into 1cm cubes and then toss them in 2 level tablespoons of flour (taken from the measured amount above). Now sift the remaining flour, the baking powder and spice into a roomy mixing bowl, holding the sieve quite high to give the flour a good airing as it goes down, then add the butter, caster sugar and eggs. Now, using an electric hand whisk, mix to a smooth, creamy consistency for about 1 minute. Then whisk in the milk. Take a metal spoon and gently fold in the fruit, nuts, candied peel and grated orange and lemon zests followed by the marzipan cubes. Now spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and level it out with the back of the spoon. Finally, take a double square of baking parchment with a 50p-sized hole in the centre (for extra protection during cooking) and place this not on the top of the mixture itself but on the rim of the liner. Bake the cake near the centre of the oven for about 2 hours 40 minutes – or until the centre is firm and springy. Leave the cake in the tin to cool for 15 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack.

Roll out the marzipan to a round approximately 22cm in diameter. Brush the top of the cooled cake with apricot jam, top with the round of marzipan, and scallop the edges using your thumb and forefinger. To toast the marzipan: cut out a circle of foil to cover the top of the cake inside the scalloped edge and place the cake under a pre-heated grill so the marzipan is 10cm from the heat source for 1½–2 minutes (watching carefully) until the scalloped edge is toasted to a golden brown. Alternatively this works well with a cooks’ blowtorch. Finally, top with the sugared flowers. This cake keeps beautifully stored in an airtight tin.

Ingredients

225g natural marzipan (for homemade Marzipan, see related recipe below)
1 level teaspoon baking powder
225g sultanas
50g glacé cherries, rinsed, dried, and cut into quarters
For the topping:
300g natural marzipan

Additional

Pre-heat the oven to 150°C, gas mark 2

Using a fan-assisted oven? Click here

Equipment

You will need a Delia Online 20cm Round Loose-based Cake Tin, greased with base and side lined plus some baking parchment.

The Delia Online bakeware range is now available online, and you can buy our 20cm Round Loose-based Cake Tin, plus washable and reusable liner (including wall liner) direct from Silverwood.
Click here for the liner pack
Click here for the tin


 

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