I used this recipe from BBC Food, but changed the fruit because I'm not a fan of raisins; I went with chopped up dried figs, apricots and prunes. In other words, I'd barely begun and my Simnel cake was already non-traditional. Oh well. My version can be found in the Recipe Box.
The cake itself is very straightforward: cream butter and sugar, add eggs, mix in flour, salt and mixed spice, and then the fruit and zest. Where things can get sticky (pun intended) is with the almond paste, or marzipan. If I'd been properly equipped there would have been no issues, but unhappily for me I was out of confectioner's sugar to dust my rolling surface and rolling pin. NEVER BE WITHOUT ICING SUGAR! Ok that's extreme, but if you make this cake, or are playing with marzipan at all, you'd better check your cupboards before you start. I made do by rolling my discs (you'll make two in total) between a piece of parchment paper (so that I could peel it off the marzipan rather than trying to scrape the marzipan off the counter) and the empty icing sugar bag, opened up flat so I could make use of the residual dust inside it. Desperate times.
In the end working this way was more tedious than if I'd just checked that I was fully stocked with the necessaries to begin with, but it worked. Rolling on the parchment was also handy in that it allowed me to trace a circle using my cake pan so that I knew exactly how big the first marzipan disc should be. As this disc is baked in the middle of the cake, you don't want it to be too wide for the pan. You should use about a third of the marzipan for this circle, and save the remainder for the topping.
The remaining marzipan should be split in half: half rolled into another disc and the rest rolled into eleven or twelve balls. The BBC recipe recommends spreading a layer of apricot jam on top of the cake before covering it with the second marzipan circle, which I intended to do but promptly forgot (this was not my finest baking exercise on the whole). That being said, I don't think that it's a necessary step. The intention seems to be that the jam helps to adhere the marzipan to the cake, but at least with my cake the marzipan had that covered... (pun intended, again).
Putting a little ruffle edge on the top layer of marzipan seems to be the traditional technique, so I tried to follow the look from the BBC recipe. I was somewhat successful. If I'd had any confectioner's sugar on hand, I would have used it to stiffen the marzipan to achieve better results, but alas. The more important part of the decoration, however, are the eleven to twelve marzipan balls that go on top of the cake. I didn't realize this until a friend told me - I just got lucky when I was rolling them that I decided on twelve instead of eight or ten - but the the balls are supposed to represent the twelve apostles. Or rather, the eleven apostles, or the eleven apostles plus Jesus. No cake for Judas.
With the cake fully topped, it was time for the exciting part - the grill. The cake is meant to be put under a hot grill for 1-2 minutes to lightly brown the marzipan. If you have a small kitchen torch, that would be an easier (probably better) way to achieve the same result. In yet another of my failures with this recipe, I didn't think to brush the marzipan with a beaten egg before putting it under the grill, despite that step having been in the recipe, and wondering about it too late when the browning was spotty and blistered-looking. Instead, I turned the grill up to 350F (180C), managed to burn my hand on the rapidly-heating grill, and popped in the unglazed cake.
When I took it out after two minutes the balls had some nice colour to them, but the rest of the marzipan looked pale and blistered. My solution was to cover the balls with foil to keep them from burning, and to put the cake back in the oven. I don't know if adding an egg glaze at this point would have helped. Another two minutes, and the browning was on more widespread, but not even. I gave up.
And then I dropped the cake.
That was a first for me. Thankfully it didn't fall all the way to the ground, just into some furniture, and since it was a sturdy fruitcake the only real damage done was to the top. So much for trying to improve its appearance. I reshaped the squished balls, minus one escapee (we'll call him Judas), and put it back in the oven with a new foil hat. It only helped so much.
In the end this was definitely a 'substance over style' cake, but there's nothing wrong with that. It was very tasty with the marzipan layer in the centre, and I was really pleased with the fig-apricot-prune combo. It was also fun to try a new occasion cake, but the morals to the story are: 1.) Don't forget your icing sugar; 2.) Don't forget the egg glaze; 3.) Don't get cocky and bend over carrying a cake in one hand.
