Name: Simnel cake
Yield: For 6-8 people
Cuisine: United Kingdom
Ingredients: 55 g (2 oz) candied citrus peel, chopped; flour, for dusting; 340 g (11¾ oz) currants; 1 tsp baking powder; butter, for greasing; 115 g (4 oz) caster (superfine) sugar; 115 g (4 oz) butter, at room temperature; 2 eggs, beaten; 1 tsp rosewater; 55 g (2 oz) almond meal; 110 g (3¾ oz) plain (all-purpose) flour; 3 eggs; 360 g (12¾ oz) almond meal; 200 g (7 oz) caster (superfine) sugar; 40 g (1½ oz) apricot kernels; 200 g (7 oz) icing (confectioners’) sugar; 1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp milk, for egg wash; ½ tbsp apricot jam, to garnish

Preparation info

For
6-8
people

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Oats in the North, Wheat from the South

By Regula Ysewijn

Published 2020

About

The Simnel cake has a rather mysterious origin. The name could come from simile conspersa, which means ‘fine flour’ in Latin. But England wouldn’t be England if she didn’t try to make it a more romantic story. In 1838, a story appeared in an English newspaper entitled ‘The Sim-Nell’ or ‘The Wiltshire Cake’. Simon and Nelly were an old couple arguing at Easter about what to do with a surplus of dough. Simon thought that the dough should be baked in a