Simple simnel

Forget your Easter eggs and dead sons of nonexistent and unloving fathers, we celebrate this moveable time of the year with a simnel (auto correct keeps thinking I mean ‘shovel’) cake. And this is how I do it…

Get all the ingredients together.

Mix them all up in a bowl. I like using my hands but I guess you could use any utensil you can find. Possibly not a shovel.

Divide the mix in half and put half in a greased and lined cake tin. Roll out a piece of marzipan to cover the mix then put the second half on top of that.

Smooth it out.

Stick it in a preheated oven for 2.5 hours, covering it if it starts to rise too quickly or brown too much.

And don’t forget to give the mixing bowl and spoon to Mirinda…unless she’s not home when you can lick it yourself.

Eventually the cake comes out of the oven. Leave it in the tin for ten minutes then leave it on a wire rack until cold. Not you, the cake.

Then, finally, put a marzipan top on it. Scratch a mark on the top. Traditionally, this mark would be a cross to signify Christ’s death but I prefer using the older and less death obsessed chi rho*.

Make a load of balls with the remaining marzipan and spread them round the cake. These are supposed to represent the apostles. Mine are more likely to be mainly Pixies with a few Fairies thrown in for good luck.

Then, and only then, burn it with your blow torch. You can use the grill but I prefer the naked flame and intensity of the torch. Particularly since I bought some new gas for it.

It should look possibly a bit better than this:

The proof, however, is in the eating. This had to wait until after dinner. I admit to being a bit under pressure after Mirinda said it was her favourite cake of the year.

I needn’t have worried. She said it was delicious.

In puppy news today…Freya was microchipped and took the needle without complaint.

* I actually like the chi rho because as well as being an early Christian symbol, it was also used by pagan Greek scribes to signify something was ‘good’. They would jot it down in the margin of a text they were working on. It signified stuff to be left in when copying.