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Simnel Cakes

"It is an old custom," says Dr Chambers, in his "Book of Days," "in Shropshire and Here-fordshire, and especially at Shrewsbury, to make during Lent and Easter, and also at Christmas, a sort of rich and expensive cakes, which are called Simnel Cakes. They are raised cakes, the crust of which is made of fine flour and water, with sufficient saffron to give it a deep yellow colour, and the interior is filled with the materials of a very rich plum cake, with plenty of candied lemon-peel and other good things. They are made up very stiff, tied up in a cloth, and boiled for several hours, after which they are brushed over with egg, and then baked. When ready for sale, the crust is as hard as if made of wood--a circumstance which has given rise to various stories of the manner in which they have at times been treated by persons to whom they were sent as presents, and who had never seen one before: one ordering his Simnel to be boiled to soften it, and a lady taking hers for a footstool. They are made of different sizes, and, as may be supposed from the ingredients, are rather expensive, some selling for as much as half-a-guinea, or even a guinea, while smaller ones may be had for half-a-crown. "The usage of these cakes is evidently one of great antiquity. It appears from one of the epigrams of the poet Herrick that, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was the custom at Gloucester for young people to carry Simnels to their mothers on Mid-Lent or Mothering Sunday. It appears also from some other writers of this age, that these Simnels, like the modern ones, were boiled as well as baked."