Simnel Cake

The story

Simnel cake began in England, where by the early 1600s it was a fruit cake tied to Mothering Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent, which falls on March 7 in 2027. The name probably comes from the Latin simila, the finest white flour. Several towns had their own versions. Shrewsbury's was boiled for hours under a hard crust before it was baked, Devizes made a star-shaped cake heavy with peel, and the Bury style, with nuts, cherries, peel and a marzipan top, won out after its promoters sent a 70-pound cake to Queen Victoria and showed a 170-pound one at Covent Garden in 1845. The cake has long since become an Easter cake as well. In West Cork it is still counted among the traditional Easter treats, a rich fruit cake with toasted marzipan on top. A layer of marzipan is baked through the middle, and eleven marzipan balls ring the top for the apostles, with Judas left out. Nigella Lawson describes it as a light fruit cake, quite different from the dark, moist Christmas cake. Bake it several days before Easter Sunday, March 28, 2027; it keeps for a week in an airtight tin and goes to the table with a pot of tea.