Hey everyone, it’s me again, Dan, welcome to my recipe page. Today, I’m gonna show you how to make a distinctive dish, simnel cake. It is one of my favorites. For mine, I will make it a bit unique. This is gonna smell and look delicious.

Simnel cake is a light fruitcake formerly eaten during the pre-Easter period in the United Kingdom, Ireland and some other countries but has become a traditional cake for Easter Sunday. It is distinguished by two layers of almond paste or marzipan, one in the middle and one on top. The top layer is capped by a circle of "eggs" made of the same paste, and is lightly browned under a grill.

Simnel cake is one of the most well liked of recent trending meals on earth. It is simple, it’s fast, it tastes delicious. It is appreciated by millions daily. They are nice and they look wonderful. Simnel cake is something that I have loved my whole life.

To get started with this recipe, we have to prepare a few ingredients. You can cook simnel cake using 30 ingredients and 10 steps. Here is how you can achieve that.

The ingredients needed to make Simnel cake:

1. Make ready For the marzipan:
2. Take 100 g ground almonds
3. Take 100 g icing sugar, plus extra to dust
4. Prepare 2 free-range egg yolks
5. Take 2 tbsp. lemon juice
6. Prepare For the cake:
7. Take 5 tbsp. milk
8. Take 1 good pinch of saffron
9. Take 150 g raisins
10. Take 150 g sultanas
11. Get 40 g brandy, vin santo or white rum
12. Make ready 50 g bleached almonds
13. Make ready 175 g plain flour
14. Make ready 1 tsp baking powder
15. Make ready 45 g ground almonds
16. Make ready 1/2 tsp fine salt
17. Take 2 tsp mixed spice
18. Get 180 g butter, at room temperature
19. Take 180 g soft, light brown sugar
20. Get 3 eggs
21. Make ready 1 tbsp. golden syrup
22. Get zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
23. Prepare 50 g glacé cherries, halved
24. Make ready 50 g mixed peel
25. Get apricot jam, to brush over the cake
26. Prepare For the icing:
27. Get 30 g caster sugar
28. Prepare 25 g butter
29. Prepare 20 g lemon juice
30. Get 110 g icing sugar

Usually a simnel cake is a round cake, made with two layers of fruitcake, sandwiched together with a layer of marzipan (almond paste). Add the rest of the cake ingredients to the soaked fruit and stir until well combined. Spoon half of this mixture into the bottom of the cake tin and level it off so it's as flat as possible. Simnel cake is a delicious fruit cake traditionally eaten at Easter time in Britain.

Steps to make Simnel cake:

1. Put the raisins and sultanas in a mixing bowl or a small zip lock bag. Heat up the spirits to almost boiling, pour it into the fruit and mix well. Seal the bag or cover the bowl and leave for a few hours, best overnight, to soak.
2. Butter and line with parchment a 20cm deep cake tin. Prepare another disc of parchment the size of the tin to place on top of the cake, to stop it from burning. Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/gas 2.
3. Warm up the milk and put the saffron strands into it to soak. Toast the almonds in a dry frying pan or in hot oven on a baking tray for 10-15 minutes until they turn golden. Cool and chop roughly.
4. Mix the flour with the baking powder, ground almonds, salt and mixed spice and put to one side. Beat the butter in an electric mixer, add the sugar and beat well until the mixture turns pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating continuously, alternating with a little flour mix. Beat in the rest of the flour, golden syrup, zest and the milk with saffron.
5. Drain the soaked fruit if necessary – but all the liquid should have been absorbed. Stir them into the cake batter together with the chopped almonds, peel and glace cherries.
6. Take the marzipan out of the fridge and roll it out on a surface dusted with icing sugar to a disc the size of your tin. Spoon half the cake batter into the tin, place the marzipan disc in and spoon the rest of the cake mix on top.
7. Smooth the surface with a spatula and place the parchment disc on top.
8. Bake the cake for about 1 ¾ - 2 hours until a skewer inserted in the middle (not too deep because of the marzipan layer) comes out clean. Cool in the tin, unmould and brush the top and sides with the apricot jam warmed up slightly in a small pan.
9. To make the icing, bring the butter, caster sugar and lemon juice to the boiling point then pour over the icing sugar. Whisk to a smooth paste, add some yellow food colouring for extra Easter cheer.
10. Spread the icing over the top of the cake with a palette knife, making sure no crumbs mix into the icing and spoil the effect. Leave to set.

Sally toasts the marzipan with a blowtorch just before serving to give the cake a golden finish. If you don't have access to a blowtorch, you could place the cake under a grill for a similar effect. Bake this classic Easter simnel cake. Cut the cherries into quarters, put in a sieve and rinse under running water. Drain well then dry thoroughly on.

So that’s going to wrap this up for this special food simnel cake recipe. Thank you very much for your time. I’m confident you will make this at home. There is gonna be more interesting food at home recipes coming up. Remember to bookmark this page on your browser, and share it to your loved ones, friends and colleague. Thanks again for reading. Go on get cooking!