Fruit - or Simnel - Cake

Wheat, gluten, corn & egg free; can be soya or dairy and nut free

Real Simnel cake, traditionally eaten at Easter, complete with marzipan, is a no-no for those with either egg or nut allergies – but this recipe still makes a very nice fruit cake. Those who have no problems with eggs or nuts can continue on to ‘ice’ it with marzipan.

Fruit Cake
300g self-raising gluten-free flour (we used Doves Farm)
or
150g each chick pea and white rice flour plus
an extra heaped tsp of gluten-free baking powder

100g buckwheat flour
2 heaped tsp gluten/wheat-free baking powder
150g dark molasses sugar
100g butter, dairy-free spread (we used PURE organic)
or coconut oil
150g raisins
100g sultanas
100g stem ginger drained and chopped small
300ml each ginger beer and cider

Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4.
Mix the flours with the baking powder and sugar in a food processor. Add the butter or spread and whizz to mix.
Turn into a bowl and stir in the raisins, sultanas and stem ginger, followed by the ginger beer and cider.
Spoon into a greased, loose-bottomed 20cm cake tin and bake for 80 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Cool slightly in the tin, then remove onto a rack to cool completely.

In a traditional Simnel cake a layer of marzipan is baked into the middle of the cake but because of the liquid texture of this mixture, this is not an option – you can just put a thicker layer on top. On the top of the cake, around the edge, you can put eleven marzipan balls to represent the apostles, excluding Judas; sometime an extra ball is put in the middle to represent Christ. The word simnel may have come from the Latin simila, the fine, wheat flour from which the cake would have been made.

Marzipan
150g each ground almonds and caster sugar
1 egg white and juice 1/2–1 lemon
some fairly smooth fruit jam

Mix the ground almonds with the sugar in a bowl and then gradually stir in about half of the egg white and sufficient lemon juice to get a moist and sticky, but not wet, texture and for the lemon juice to take the sweet edge off the marzipan.
When the cake is quite cold, cover the top with a thin layer of jam – to make the marzipan stick to the cake.
Roll out the marzipan, ‘dusting’ the counter with icing sugar, to roughly the size of the cake. Cut out a round and place it on top. If it will not roll you can also just press it out on the top of the cake with your hands.
Use the left over bits of marzipan to roll out 12 small balls.
Place eleven of these (to represent the apostles) round the outside of the cake, and one, to represent Christ in the
middle.

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