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Simnel Cake
Servings: 8
: 917 kcal
Author: Just Jo
Ingredients
  • 225 g soft butter
  • 225 g light muscovado sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 25 g ground almonds
  • 250 g self-raising flour
  • 1 tbsp mixed spice
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 500 g dried mixed fruits*
  • 50 g stem or candied ginger chopped
  • Zest and juice of a lemon
  • Zest and juice of an orange
  • 200 g marzipan
To top the cake
  • 150-200 g marzipan
  • 2 tbsp apricot jam or ginger preserves
  • Mini eggs chocolate eggs or fluffy chicks to decorate
  • *= use whatever you have whatever you like. Sultanas, chopped glacé cherries, cranberries, currants, raisins all work well. Also, I often soak mine in booze for quite some time before using – it adds to the moisture and flavour of the cake but of course, you don’t have to do this extra step.
Instructions
  1. Grease and line a deep 20cm loose bottomed cake tin. If your oven has fierce heat, fold up a long length of baking paper once or twice to make a collar to tie around the outside of the tin to act as insulation from the direct heat.
  2. Preheat oven to 160°C.
  3. Cream the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy.
  4. Crack in the eggs and ground almonds then beat until smooth – you can add a spoonful of the flour if you’re worried about curdling.
  5. Add the flour and spices, beating in until the flour is almost fully incorporated then add all the fruits, zest and juice and beat this in.
  6. Spoon in half the cake mixture to the prepared tin, level it flat. The mixture is looser than a traditional Christmas cake recipe – this is a good thing!
  7. Roll the marzipan out to a round slightly less than 20cm and place on top of this mixture.
  8. Spoon on the rest of the cake mixture and flatten the surface.
  9. Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 2 hours. Now, I put mine low down in the oven but I have my thermometer on the same shelf so I know it is at the correct temperature. The higher the shelf, the hotter the oven gets (as hot air rises) and a cake that bakes for 2 hours needs to cooked a little more gently or it will catch and burn around the edges.
  10. I would check at 90 minutes to see if the cake is done – just remember that a skewer has to go through the marzipan layer so it will feel a little soft inside but there shouldn’t be any batter clinging to the skewer and the cake should be risen, browned and spring back when pressed gently.
  11. Cool in the tin – I usually do this overnight.
  12. Turn the cake out and heat the preserve of your choice and then brush over the top of the cake.
  13. Roll the remaining marzipan to 20 cm in diameter (I stipulate 150-200g as you may like a thinner or thicker layer or want to make some balls to decorate the top with) and place on top of the jammed up cake surface. Crimp the edges between the thumb and finger of one hand and the knuckle of your first finger on the second.
  14. Place under a grill to colour the surface of the marzipan – it will catch in places but make sure it is not too close to the grill element as it may burn or melt. This will take barely a minute so stand by the grill and watch it carefully. Remove and cool.
  15. Decorate as you wish – fluffy, technicolour Easter chicks are mandatory in our house.