Simnel Cake

Northern housewives baked the Easter simnel cake—a rich fruit cake with a layer of marzipan through the middle and a topping of marzipan—with the last of the dried fruit and nuts that stocked the winter storecupboard, cleaned out in the course of the yearly spring cleaning undertaken by all responsible housewives as soon as the weather warmed up. There are several theories to explain its curious name, the most likely being that the recipe dates back to Roman times and derives from simila