Simnel Cake Recipe ~ how many balls on yours?

Happy Easter Everyone!

  

I know it’s a bit late but here is my recipe for Simnel Cake – I only made it yesterday afternoon. Some people put 12 balls on their cake to represent the 12 apostles but I think traditionally there are only 11, Judas not deserving to be there. 

Simnel Cake

This recipe is for an 18cm (7 inch) cake tin but I haven’t got one so used a larger pan which resulted in a thinner cake and a need for more marzipan; not a bad situation.

175g soft butter

175g light muscovado sugar

3 eggs

175g self-raising flour
a pinch of salt
1 tsp ground mixed spice

275g mixed dried fruit

90g glacé cherries - quartered

finely grated zest of 1 orange

500g marzipan
2 tbsp apricot jam – I’m going to use honey

~   Grease the cake tine and line with greaseproof paper.
~   Preheat the oven to 150ºC/300°F/130ºC fan/gas 2 for.
~   Roll out a third of the marzipan, and using the base of the cake tin as a template cut out a circle.
~   Stir together dry ingredients.
~   Cream together the butter and sugar, then mix in the eggs together with a spoonful of the flour (this helps prevent the mix from curdling).

~   Stir in the rest of the flour and all the fruit and zest.
~   Spoon half of this mixture into the prepared cake tin, level the surface and lay the round of marzipan onto it.

~   Add the rest of the cake mix and smooth the surface.

~   Bake for about 2¼ hours till firm to the touch and golden brown.
~   If it starts browning too quickly lay a circle of greaseproof paper on top.
~   Cool for 15 minutes or so before removing from the tin and then cool completely on a rack.

~   Brush the top of the cold cake with the jam or honey (jam is more normal but I always use honey for this sort of thing – the flavour goes well with fruit cake, it isn’t lumpy and I always have plenty in stock).
~   Roll out half of the remaining marzipan and cut another cake sized circle.
~   Press this gently onto the cake and make a pretty pattern round the edge with your fingers.
~   Divide the remaining marzipan into 11 or 12 balls and arrange them around the edge of the cake. Press gently into place.
~   Preheat the grill and then pop the cake under for a few minutes watching constantly to just caramelise lightly.

We ate a slice each as soon as the cake was out from under the grill and the warm sticky caramelised marzipan was a delight!

In Other News ...

Not only is it Easter weekend but today is also International Carrot Day which is, according to carrotday.com ...