• Easter recipes
• History of Easter
• The Easter egg
• Hot cross buns

SIMNEL CAKE

• The Simnel Cake is what is traditionally baked for Easter although it was originally made for the 4th Sunday in Lent known as Mothering Sunday. This day was also referred to as Refreshment Sunday due to the relaxing of the rules for Lent on that particular day.



• Simnel cake is a rich fruitcake covered with a thick layer of almond paste or icing although the crust was occasionally made from a mixture of flour and water, which was coloured with saffron. The earliest simnel cakes were more akin to biscuits due to their size and thinness.



• Mothering Sunday was a time put aside for relaxation and enjoyment during the long Lenten fast. In olden days, young servant girls who worked away from home were given time off by their masters to visit their mothers on this special day and they would bake a simnel cake to present as a gift. Earlier traditions saw the cake being eaten on this day but it soon became customary to keep the cake for a week until Easter Sunday.



• Keeping the cake stored for the week leading up to Easter was seen to be a test of the young girls’ culinary skills; she was considered to be a good cook if the cake retained its taste and moistness on Easter Sunday. Fortunately, fruitcake has always maintained its reputation for long life, which aided the girls somewhat!



• The name simnel is derived from the old French word simenel via the Latin term used to describe the finest flour for baking cakes, simila.



• There is a suggestion, however, that simnel comes from a legend when a man named Simon and his wife, Nell, were debating whether to bake or boil the cake for Mothering Sunday. In the end, they did both and modestly named the cake after them ­ Sim-Nell!



• The tops of simnel cakes were usually decorated with 11 or 12 almond paste balls to represent the apostles, which highlights the religious significance. Most people felt that Judas did not deserve a place on the cake whilst some preferred to include the whole complement of apostles. One tradition was to engrave a figure of Jesus in the centre of the cake with the 11 or 12 paste balls surrounding the image.



• Today, simnel cakes are decorated with various items such as crystallised flowers (usually violets and primroses), or fluffy chicks and coloured eggs made from icing, chocolate and so forth.