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Dessert

Simnel Cake

Simnel cake is a layered cake with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, currants, candied peel, almond paste, and crystallized fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and flour, then beat well.

  3. Stir in the currants and candied peel.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer half of the mixture in a lined cake tin.

  2. Add a layer of almond paste, then top with the remaining mixture.

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

  4. Once baked, place almond paste on top, leaving a hollow center.

  5. Return to the oven until the top is nicely browned.

  6. When cool, decorate with crystallized fruits and pink sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 and give a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture to the cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit and sweetness throughout the cake.
Almond paste
Forms a dense, sweet middle layer and a topping that browns during baking.

The step that matters

Returning the cake to the oven after adding the top almond paste. The top almond paste must brown without burning, so the cake needs close watching; the hollow center helps the cake finish baking evenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

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