Simnel Cake
3/4 cupful sugar 3/4 cupful Crisco 4 eggs 2 cupfuls sultana raisins 1/4 cupful seeded raisins ½ cupful chopped candied citron peel 2 cupfuls flour 1 teaspoonful baking powder ½ teaspoonful almond extract 3/4 teaspoonful salt
This is an ingredient list without a method, as many entries in the Crisco book are — the reader was expected to know how a fruit cake goes together. A few of the quantities also need a second look before you commit to them.
- No method is givenWork it as a standard creamed fruit cake: beat the Crisco and sugar until light, add the eggs one at a time, sift the flour with the baking powder and salt, then fold in the flour and fruit alternately with the almond extract added at the end. Dredging the fruit in a spoonful of the measured flour keeps it from sinking.
- There is no liquidFour eggs are the only moisture for two cupfuls of flour and nearly four cupfuls of fruit, so the batter will be very stiff — closer to a paste than a pourable mixture. That is normal for a cake of this type, but expect to push it into the pan rather than pour it.
- CriscoStraight vegetable shortening, sold in the same form today. Three quarters of a cupful is about 145 g; butter can be substituted one for one, for a different flavour and a slightly firmer crumb.
- The citron peelA cupful and a half of chopped candied citron is a great deal against two cupfuls of flour, and the figure may be a misprint for half a cupful. Taste your peel first -- if it is the aggressively bitter kind, half a cupful may suit better.
- Sultanas and seeded raisinsSultanas are golden seedless grapes, still sold under that name in Britain and as golden raisins in the United States. "Seeded" in this period means the seeds have been taken out, not left in, so ordinary dark raisins do the job.
- Oven and timeA rich fruit cake of this size wants a slow oven — 300 to 325F — for about 1½ to 2 hours, tested with a skewer. Higher heat sets and browns the outside long before the dense middle is cooked.
- Pan and liningBake in a deep 8-inch round tin, lined with parchment on the base and sides. Because of the sugar in the peel, an unlined tin will scorch at the edges even at a low temperature.
- Almond extractA teaspoonful and a half of modern extract is assertive. Start with a teaspoonful if you prefer the fruit to lead.
- YieldAbout sixteen to twenty thin slices. It keeps for a week or more wrapped in parchment and foil, and improves after two or three days.
Simnel cake belongs to the English church calendar rather than to the American baking tradition, which makes its appearance in a Cincinnati shortening pamphlet a small oddity. It is traditionally associated with Mothering Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent, when servants and apprentices were given leave to visit their home parish and often carried a cake to their mothers; by the nineteenth century the towns of Bury, Devizes and especially Shrewsbury were each known for a distinct local version, and the cake later drifted toward Easter. The name is generally traced to Latin simila, a fine wheat flour, though a well-worn folk tale about a couple named Simon and Nell is repeated in Victorian sources with no evidence behind it. What is notably absent here is the almond paste — the layer baked into the middle and the crown of eleven marzipan balls that most people now expect — leaving a plain rich fruit cake flavoured with almond extract instead, which suits a book whose real business was demonstrating that a hydrogenated vegetable fat could stand in for butter and lard in any established recipe.