Simnel Cake? Never heard of it…

I’ve been hearing that a lot this week so thought it was time to put pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard.

A Simnel cake is a rich fruit cake with a layer of marzipan in the middle and on top. Originally it was associated with Mothering Sunday as domestic servants would travel home to their families on that day and bring food as gifts and a calorie rich fruit cake was much needed nutrition after the cold winter months.

Over the years that tradition died out and Simnel cake became part of our Easter celebrations, with the decoration changed to reflect that. A full sized Simnel cake now has 11 balls of marzipan on top to represent all of the apostles except Judas.

Nobody knows where the name comes from but there is a funny myth about a couple called Simon and Nelly who cannot agree on how to cook the cake. One wants to boil it and the other wishes to bake it, so they argue and hit each other with kitchen utensils until they agree to boil it and bake it. This is how it is believed that the cake was made in medieval times but we just bake ours and it is available in single slices or as a larger sharing slab (although you don’t have to share if you don’t want to).