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Dessert

Simnel Cake

A fruit and nut cake baked in a cloth, boiled, then baked to a hard crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Simnel Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Add the whipped egg whites and mix for 1 minute.

  3. Incorporate the beaten egg yolks, sugar, flour, currants, candied citron, candied lemon peels, almonds, orange sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice.

  4. Pour in the brandy and a little water, then beat the mixture well.

Boil the cake

  1. Gather the mixture into a lump, roll it out, and fold it over.

  2. Place it in a cloth wrung out in hot water and floured, then tie it up.

  3. Boil in a saucepan of boiling water for 3 hours.

  4. Remove the cloth and place the cake smooth side up on a tin to cool.

Bake and cool

  1. Brush the top with beaten egg and bake at 300°F (150°C) until the crust is hard and lightly browned.

  2. Let the cake cool completely.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb through fat.
Egg whites
Whipped to give lift and a light structure to the batter.
Egg yolks
Add richness, colour and binding to the batter.
Flour
Provides structure that holds the dense fruit and nuts together.
Caster sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderise the crumb.
Currants
Contribute sweetness, moisture and chewy fruit pieces throughout.

The step that matters

Boiling the cake in the cloth. The cloth must be wrung out in hot water and floured so the crust forms a firm skin and the cake does not stick. Tying it firmly keeps the shape and stops water entering, so the cake cooks evenly over the full 3 hours.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, flour, lemon, almond, orange. 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.

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