Easter Simnel Cake
Cake Ingredients:
175g white sugar
175g Stork Bake, softened
175g self raising flour
3 large eggs
25g ground almonds
30ml milk
200g sultanas
100g dried apricots, chopped into small pieces
5ml mixed spice
5ml ground ginger
100g glacé cherries, quartered, washed, and dried
Decorations:
600g marzipan
50ml apricot jam
1 egg, beaten
Speckled eggs
Grease and line the base of a 20cm deep, round cake tin with baking paper.
Measure all the cake ingredients (except the cherries) into a large mixing bowl and beat well until thoroughly blended.
Gently stir in the cherries.
Place half the mixture into the prepared tin and level the surface.
Divide the marzipan into three equal pieces.
Take one third of the marzipan and roll into a circle the same size as the cake tin, place the circle on top of the cake mixture.
Spoon the remaining mixture on top of the marzipan and level the surface.
Bake for about 1¾ - 2 hours at 160ºC or until golden brown and firm in the middle.
If, toward the end of the cooking time the cake is getting too brown, loosely cover with a piece of foil.
Cool in the tin before turning onto a cooling rack.
Brush the top of the cooled cake with a little warmed apricot jam.
Roll out half the remaining marzipan to the size of the cake and sit it on the top.
Crimp the edges of the marzipan.
Make 11 even sized balls from the remaining marzipan and arrange around the edge.
Brush with beaten egg and glaze under a hot grill for about 5 minutes, turning the cake round so it browns evenly and the marzipan is tinged brown all over.
You can also do this with a blow torch if preferred. Place speckled eggs in the centre before serving
