Skip to main content

Easter Simnel Cake for the Weekly Bake Off


It's late in the day for an Easter post perhaps, but this week's recipe for the Weekly Bake Off, as chosen by the lovely Amy, was Easter Simnel Cake.


The Weekly Bake Off is Amy's masterplan to bake her way through Mary Berry's 100 Cakes and Bakes, a beautiful little baking book which is so reasonably priced (under £4 at the moment) and with so many varied recipes that I really encourage you to buy it!


Although I knew what it was, I've never even tasted Simnel Cake before (a little bit put off by the amount of marzipan - especially without the Christmassy covering of royal icing - I mean I like marzipan, but this has always seemed too much). The recipe can be found online at My Kitchen Table, so I won't repeat it here.


It's actually quite a simple recipe, chock full of sultanas, currants and glace cherries. The trickiest part is fitting the dividing layer of marzipan into the cake tin. I ended up using the loose bottom from a cake tin of the same size to cut around once I had rolled the marzipan out.

Marzipan layer
Marzipan covered and ready to go in the oven

The recipe calls for the cake to be baked for 2 1/2 hours in total - I did as advised and checked after 1 hour, and as my cake was looking quite brown at that stage, I covered it with foil. I intended to check it again after a further hour, but missed the beep of the timer, so by the time I next checked on it, it had done nearly the full 2 1/2 hours. 


At this point the cake looked a little overdone and, as you can see from the above photo of a slice of the cake, was definitely drier and crustier around the edges. Rolling out the marzipan for the top covering and the balls representing the 11 Apostles (as a traitor, Judas doesn't get one) was pretty straightforward, although I found it difficult to get the crimped edge to look nice.

To be honest, I'm not sure I'd make it again. Although my brother and neice thought it was great, it was a little dry, and when they wanted cake to take home today, they opted for Friday's Lemon Drizzle Blueberry Loaf, which was still lovely and moist. I know others in the Bake Off thought this was a lovely cake, so maybe it would have been better if I had managed to get it out of the oven earlier.



I hope you've had a fantastic Easter,

Susie

Comments

  1. Well done for giving this a go - it looks really nice even if it's slightly overdone. Hope you had a good Easter!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Ros, definitely worth giving it a go for the baking experience! Had a lovely Easter with family and the boys happily wolfed lots of chocolate. Hope you had a good one, too :)

      Delete
  2. Your Simnel looks fab! My brother liked it too! I agree though that 2 1/2 hours was a little too much. I hope you've had a good Easter weekend! :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, definitely needs a little less cooking time. Had a lovely weekend, hope yours was too! :D

      Delete
  3. That is a one amazing looking cake, Susie! I have never baked with marzipan before - will have to add it to my list. Have a fabulous weekend!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Your comments are very much appreciated.

Popular posts from this blog

Dark Indulgent Chocolate and Walnut Brownies for the Weekly Bake Off

It's been a great couple of weeks in the Bake Off , as Amy has chosen some fantastic chocolate recipes from Mary Berry's 100 Cakes and Bakes . Although I made last week's American Chocolate Ripple Cheesecake, I didn't enter it. Not because it was a disaster (it was incredibly delicious though very rich - Josh has been able to eek it out all week as he only needs a little piece to get his daily chocolate fix!), but I simply ran out of time. So this week, I decided to get my skates on and make the bake early. Particularly as it's brownies. Yes. Brownies. Those dark, fudgey, chocolatey little bites of heaven. But for me, this week was an experiment. You see, I already have a fantastic brownie recipe . It's been made countless times and been played around with to give an endless variety of treats. (Have I ever mentioned Maya Gold in brownies? Yes? Well I'll have to post about them someday soon because they are amazing - like some sort of out of body exp

Not Viennese, but Swiss Cakes for the Weekly Bake Off

One of my strongest childhood memories is the ritual of our family's Sunday Tea, which always took a certain form. My nan would put the kettle on at just before 4pm, and a pot of steaming hot tea would soon be brewed. There were sandwiches, and always, always some form of cake. Quite often, if nan and mum had had a busy weekend, it would be provided by Mr Kipling. My brother and I looked forward to this with some enthusiasm, as there were quite often French Fancies and Vienniese Whirls, which were our hands-down favourites. We could leave the Battenburg Slices, and the jam tarts were often a bit too dry  for us (definitely not as good as homemade). But the soft sweet inside of an iced French Fancy (my favourite being the lemon yellow ones), and the moistness of the Viennese Whirls were something to savour. Of course, you can still buy these. But they just don't seem to taste the same somehow. So when Amy announced this week's Bake Off challenge as the Apricot Swiss

Limoncello Cake

I really love this cake. I mean really love it. So much so, it's my new best friend. It's like sunshine on a plate. The citrussy aroma tempts you while the sultry lemony pucker hits you full in the mouth. And who can resist anything with 'Limoncello' in the title? The mere mention of the word transports you to to the Sicilian sun. It's one more reason I have to thank Random Recipes for getting me to delve into my cookbooks. This month's challenge had a bit of a twist. Dom, of Belleau Kitchen (who runs the challenge) created a Randometer thingummy-bob to test us. You had to enter how many cookbooks you owned, and then it would generate a random number. You counted along your shelf to that book, and then entered the number of pages, to generate another number and so find your Random Recipe. The gods must have been looking favourably on me this month, as I ended up with this gorgeous lemon cake, from Peggy Porschen's 'Boutique Baking