Easter approach
Simnel stir up
Hello hello, the time has come for me to start feeling Eastery, if you missed last year I’m an Easter fanatic and thrilled about it! Mazurki (Polish Easter biscuits) coming to Leila’s this week.
Highlights of the last two weeks: seeing CMAT at Ally Pally, she’s always glorious live, an amazing dance performance at Sadlers Wells with New York City Ballet dancer Tiler Peck and Tap dancer Michelle Dorrance, also a fun job for Home of Hai and Brooke Callahan collaboration, with berry shades of empire biscuits.
I also did a bit of a workshop test run with some past students. It was all things custard, they seemed to enjoy it so you can expect a custard workshop on my future roster, we covered different custard infusions, custard tarts, creme brulee, creme caramel, creme patisserie, creme diplomat and German buttercream, action packed!
I’d like to mention the launch of The Auricle, the Nottingham Mill Coop Newsletter on Substack, a project very close to my heart. I’d highly recommend, a fascinating read also heads up in the next episode there is an interview talking all things grain with moi!
So the approach to Easter begins, blossoms bursting, people have their sunnies out, the clocks go forward at the weekend, and mini eggs are abundant. I thought we could cover a traditional British Easter Classic, the Simnel cake, essentially a fruit cake it definitely divides the crowds as some people seem to have a deep hatred for anything connected to a raisin which is obviously quite a key ingredient, I’m not really sure how a tiny sweet shrivelled grape can cause such offence but hey ho. I’m a big fruit cake fan, love the long lasting quality of it, I have only just polished off the end of my Chrissy cake so I am in need of some new fruit cake in my life, plus it makes excellent use of my copious amounts of candied peel.
Originally a leavened dough dating back to medieval times, the 17th century brought about a boiling method I guess similar to a steamed pudding. It was first associated with Mother’s Day which falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent, it made an excellent gift to take back to your dearest Mama and then somehow merged into an Easter thing. It wasn’t until the 20th Century that the introduction of marzipan happened, which is how we recognise it today although it seems to be dying out a tad in favour of choccy bunnies. You often see them decorated with 11 marzipan balls on top representing Jesus’ 11 disciples, Judas is excluded for his treacherous behaviour.
The word Simnel derives from the Latin “Simla” which translates as “fine flour.” Now this is a tricky one for me as often this was interpreted as the finest WHITE flour, and as you may know white white flour is not really my thing. But I chose to use my interpretation of my finest flour which was a sifted Maris Widgeon hot off the press from Emma at the Nottingham Mill Coop. Although thinking about it, back in medieval times I bet their version of “white” flour was actually quite similar to the one I use, as their sifting capabilities were probably a bit more limited.
The Simnel is a tad lighter than Christmas cake, and not often iced. I personally am not a big fan of icing on fruit cakes, I mostly ice my Chrissy cakes very thinly as everyone seems to love the look so much, I personally peel the icing off as it’s my least favourite part, I do however love the marzipan. Again a bit of a crowd divider, any marzipan I encountered as a child I was pretty adverse to but as soon as I made my own it was a game changer and very easy. So the Simnel which also has a hidden marzipan layer in the middle of the cake calls to me. Of course you can take on full creative license and decorate however you see fit, or forego decorating altogether. I predictably took Easter inspiration from the beautiful Eastern European decorated eggs that pop up at this time of year to adorn your Easter trees!
The dried fruit you could use is actually very flexible, the majority ends up being raisins/currants/sultanas probably because they are the cheapest, but I also use prunes (a store cupboard staple of mine), sour cherries, glacé cherries, candied peel with a variety of citrus types and quince. You can use any dried fruits, pear, apple, fig, mango, pineapple, feel free to play with it if you don’t want the raisin to dominate! Nuts are also an option, I haven’t used them this time round as I get my nut fix from the marzipan.
