Skip to main content
Dessert

Simnel Cake

A fruit cake with almond paste inside and marzipan on top, baked for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Simnel Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Make the almond paste for inside the cake by mixing 4 oz castor sugar, almond and vanilla essence, 3 oz ground almonds, and 1 egg to bind.

  2. Sift the flour and cornflour together and clean the currants.

  3. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs.

Make the cake mixture

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks.

  3. Stir in the currants and flour.

  4. Fold in the stiffly whipped egg whites gently.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour half of the mixture into a greased and lined cake tin.

  2. Shape the almond paste for inside the cake into a round slightly smaller than the cake tin.

  3. Place the almond paste in the tin.

  4. Cover with the remaining cake mixture.

  5. Bake for 2 to 3 hours in a moderate oven at 350 °F (175 °C).

Decorate and set

  1. Once cool, make the almond paste for outside the cake using 6 oz castor sugar, almond and vanilla essence, 5 oz ground almonds, and 1 egg to bind.

  2. Shape about three-quarters of it into a round.

  3. Cover the top of the cake with the almond paste.

  4. Make the rest into small balls.

  5. Arrange the small balls on top.

  6. Place in a cool oven at 300 °F (150 °C) to set and slightly brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites add lift and structure.
Flour
Provides the main structure once mixed with the butter, sugar and eggs.
Cornflour
Softens the flour, producing a finer, more tender crumb.
Currants
Add fruit, sweetness and moisture throughout the cake.
Ground almonds
Add moisture, richness and nutty flavour to the almond paste.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold the air that lifts the cake. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates the batter and leaves a dense result.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, egg, almond, vanilla):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, egg, almond, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More simnel cake recipes

Almond 3 See all 19 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipes