Hairy Bikers simnel cake is a traditional Easter fruit cake with a layer of homemade marzipan baked through the middle and a toasted marzipan top. From their Best of British series on BBC Food, it makes 12 slices at roughly 740 calories by my count, in 3¼ hours plus cooling.
The finishing touch is 11 marzipan balls, “representing all the Apostles”, as the BBC Food page puts it, so that’s everyone bar Judas. And before the batter, the dried fruit and cherries bubble in fresh orange and lemon juice until the liquid has gone.
The marzipan disc in the middle is the bit I’d take most care over, rolling it to 5mm and taking it right to the sides. So every slice gets an even seam of almond through the fruit, which is my reasoning for being fussy.
Hairy Bikers Simnel Cake Recipe
Description
A creamed muscovado batter studded with juice-plumped fruit, glacé cherries and citrus zest bakes around a hidden marzipan disc. Once the cake is cold, it gets apricot jam, a scored marzipan lid and a ring of little balls, then a flash under the grill.
Ingredients
For the marzipan
For the fruit cake
To finish
Instructions
- Make the marzipan: Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl and stir in the caster sugar and almonds. Then beat the eggs with the almond extract and lemon juice, stir them in and work it by hand into a stiff, pliable paste.
- Rest the marzipan: Knead it on a surface dusted with icing sugar for a minute or two until smooth. Then cover it tightly and leave it for 1 to 2 hours while you start the cake. And note that this marzipan contains raw egg.
- Simmer the fruit: Grate the orange and lemon zest first and set it aside, then squeeze the juice into a non-stick pan with the dried fruit and cherries. Then bring to a simmer over a medium heat and bubble for 2 minutes, stirring, until the liquid has gone. Tip it onto a plate to cool.
- Prepare the tin: Butter a 20cm deep, loose-based round cake tin and line the base and sides with two layers of baking parchment. Then mix the flour and mixed spice, whisk the eggs in another bowl and heat the oven to 170°C/Fan 150°C/Gas 3.
- Cream the batter: Beat the butter and sugar in a food mixer or with electric beaters for 3 to 4 minutes, until very fluffy. But don’t use a food processor. Then add the eggs a little at a time, beating well, and if it curdles, beat in a couple of tablespoons of flour.
- Add the fruit: Beat in the flour mixture slowly in two batches. Then stir in the cooled fruit and the orange and lemon zest.
- Lay the middle marzipan: Spoon half the batter into the tin and smooth it. Then divide the marzipan into three and roll one piece on sugared parchment to 5mm thick. Cut a circle 1cm wider than the tin, using the tin as a guide.
- Fill and bake: Lay the circle on the batter right to the sides, then wrap the other two pieces of marzipan tightly in cling film. Spoon in the rest of the batter. Then bake for about 1 hour 20 minutes, until risen, firm and golden, covering loosely with foil if the top browns too fast.
- Test it: Test it in the oven with a long skewer, since taking it out could make it sink, and give it longer if needed. As my own note, the skewer will be sticky where it passes through the marzipan, so judge the cake crumb.
- Cool completely: Leave it in the tin for 15 minutes, then lift it out and peel off the paper. Cool it on a wire rack until completely cold.
- Top with marzipan: Turn the cake upside down onto a baking tray, so the flat base becomes the top. Then warm the apricot jam in a small pan for a minute. After that, roll another piece of marzipan to 5mm and cut a circle the size of the tin. Brush the cake with jam and lay it on.
- Decorate: Flute or pinch the edge, then score a criss-cross pattern on top at about 2.5cm intervals. Roll 11 balls of marzipan at 16 to 20g each, dab each with jam and set them around the edge.
- Toast and finish: Toast under a hot grill, 15 to 20cm from the element, for 2 to 3 minutes until lightly coloured, watching it closely. Then leave it to cool and tie a wide yellow ribbon around it before slicing.
FAQs
How much marzipan goes where?
The homemade batch weighs about 880g by my reckoning, so each third comes to roughly 290g. So one goes through the middle and one makes the lid, while the 11 balls only need 176 to 220g of the last third.
So you’ll have a little marzipan left over, as the recipe expects. And I’d keep the spare in cling film for nibbling or a few extra decorations, which is my own idea.
Can I use shop-bought marzipan?
Yes, and I’d consider it if anyone eating the cake should avoid raw egg, since the BBC page flags that the homemade marzipan contains it. And you’d need about 900g to match the homemade batch, which is my estimate.
The battenberg in their Mums Still Know Best book uses 500g of ready-made marzipan, so I don’t see it as cheating. But their Brilliant Bakes marzipan uses raw egg white too, and one batch makes only about 290g, so you’d need three.
Is this the BBC Good Food or Mary Berry simnel cake?
No, this is the Hairy Bikers recipe on BBC Food, from the Food and Religion episode of their Best of British series. So if you’ve seen a BBC Good Food or Mary Berry simnel cake, those are different recipes from different cooks.
I wouldn’t call it the easy version, because the marzipan is homemade, but it’s fine in stages. So make the marzipan first, then simmer the fruit and line the tin while it rests.
Why simmer the fruit in orange and lemon juice?
To my mind it plumps the fruit with citrus and keeps the cake moist, all without any alcohol. And the pan only needs a couple of minutes, because you stop as soon as the liquid has gone.
Their boiled fruit cake takes the idea much further, simmering 700g of fruit with butter, sugar and stout. Or for a cake topped with almonds instead of marzipan, their Dundee cake brings marmalade and whisky.
How long does simnel cake keep?
The BBC page gives no storage advice, and only the middle marzipan is baked, since the lid and balls just get a few minutes’ grilling. So I’d keep it somewhere cool in an airtight tin and eat it within 2 to 3 days.
With ready-made marzipan I’d allow up to a week, and I’d bake the cake itself a day ahead if that helps. And for another celebration cake, their Christmas cake skips weeks of maturing and needs just an overnight soak in port.
