Simnel Cake

The Fourth Sunday in Lent is often regarded in western or Catholic Christianity as a sort of mid-point at which some pause in the Lent fast can be allowed. It is known by a wide variety of names: Laetare Sunday (from the opening words of the Mass of the day, "Laetare Jerusalem", rejoice O Jerusalem), Mid-Lenting Sunday, Refreshment Sunday, Mothering Sunday and more.

One of the customs associated with this day in England, or especially particular towns in the northern counties, is the Simnel Cake. Probably named from the Latin simila (fine flour), this had quite varied forms in different towns, but tends now to mean a fruit cake, flavoured with almond paste and often decorated with balls, eleven of them for the eleven (faithful) apostles. Contrary to some commentaries in the gastro-blogosphere, this is not an "Easter" cake - that confusion is evidence of the same curious modern tendency that assumes "Easter" is the period before the feast rather than after it.

This version owes something to that published in Helen Jerome's Concerning Cake Making (1932). This is close enough to traditional versions to be a far cry from the generic fruit cake that now tends to be presented as a "Simnel Cake". It has no leavening agent, for instance. The result of making the paste from scratch and browning it is rustic rather than refined.

Ingredients
-Cake
110g/4oz butter or margarine
110g/4 oz brown sugar
3 eggs
160g/6oz flour
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp saffron threads, soaked in 1 Tbp boiling water
150g currants
200 g sultanas (small or golden raisins, to US readers)
50g candied peel
2-3 Tbps apricot jam

-Almond Paste
150g/5oz caster sugar
150g/5oz almond meal/ground almonds(*)
1 tsp almond essence
1 egg, beaten

Method
Make almond paste: combine sugar and almond meal, add beaten egg and essence, mix to a thick soft paste and set aside.

Pre-heat a fairly slow (140C/275F) oven. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time and beat to combine. Add flour and salt, then dried fuit and peel, and stir.

Line and grease an 8" cake tin, and spoon half the mixture into it. Take 1/3 of the almond paste and roll into a circle the same size as the cake tin and lay it across the mixture. Add remaining cake mixture, smooth top, and bake 90 minutes. Check at 60 minutes to make sure cake is not browning too much; turn down if necessary. Remove cake and cool.

When ready to decorate, spread jam across top of cake. Roll 1/2 of the remaining paste into another circle and place across the cake, and use the rest of the paste to make eleven balls. To finish, the cake is to be browned in a 180C/350F oven for 5-10 minutes. To achieve an even effect you may choose first to brown the balls on a baking sheet next to the cake, then place them on top with a little additional jam to stick; alternatively, stick balls on cake before returning to the oven for browning.

(*)I used a mixture of almond meal and (about 2 Tbps) ground apricot kernels, and omitted the essence. Apricot kernels are a source of the almond flavour found in marzipan etc.