The earliest reliable reference Answer Man can find in The Washington Post to simnel cake is from April 5, 1912, in a section titled “Facts and Fancies in a Woman’s World.” The most recent reference is, well, you’re looking at it.
Back in 1912, The Post described simnel cake as a “rich plum cake, which is incased in a paste and first boiled and then baked, with the result that the ‘husk’ is of extraordinary hardness, but forms a splendid protection for the rich and plummy ‘kernel.’”
How hard can a simnel cake be? Well, wrote The Post, “One old lady, on receiving a gift of a Simnel cake, tried in vain to make an impression on its surface, and in despair, it is said, used it as a footstool.”
It sounds like simnel cakes are hard to make (boiled then baked?) and hard to eat (footstool!). So why has Answer Man become obsessed with them? Honestly, it’s because until about 10 years ago, he’d never heard of simnel cakes and of their connection to Mother’s Day.
We’re talking Mother’s Day in the U.K., not Mother’s Day in the U.S. of A. Over there, Mother’s Day is celebrated about a month earlier than here. That places it closer to Easter, the other holiday with which simnel cakes are associated. Fifteen years ago, Answer Man was living in Oxford and idly perusing some old books in the university’s Bodleian Library when he came across a reference to the simnel cake and its association with what the English call Mothering Sunday.
Nowadays, Mothering Sunday is about moms, er, mums, but in the Middle Ages it was a Lenten event marked by visiting the “mother” church: the parish church where you were baptized or a nearby cathedral. Over time, it became elided with human mothers, who have always provided a handy metaphor for religion.
Anyway, the recipes Answer Man found in that ancient library sounded complex. And the end product didn’t sound all that tasty. It’s basically a cake riddled with dried fruit, the sort of confection that’s the butt of jokes around Christmas. But Answer Man thought he knew everything and was surprised he hadn’t known about simnel cakes. Were they being handed out every spring to mothers across that green and pleasant land?
Not exactly. Of the three British mothers Answer Man spoke with, only one had made a simnel. One had never made or eaten a simnel. And one had eaten one but never made one. Her husband made it, but for Easter, not Mother’s Day. Last week, Answer Man decided to give it a go for the mother of his children.
Why “simnel?” Some sources say the name is derived from the Latin simila, which means fine flour and is also the root of semolina.
An 1874 book called “History of the Borough of Bury and Neighbourhood in the County of Lancaster” includes this: “Some allege that the father of Lambert Simnel, the pretender to the throne in the reign of Henry VII, was a baker and the first maker of simnels, and that his son’s celebrity shed lustre upon his father’s cakes.”
Another tale holds that there was “an honest old couple” living in Shropshire named Simon and Nelly. Supposedly, their grown children visited each Easter. Nelly suggested making a cake with some leftover Lenten dough. Simon remembered they had leftover plum-pudding from Christmas. Why not bake the fruitcake inside a carapace of dough?
Alas, the couple couldn’t decide how to cook it: boiled or baked? This being the land of Punch and Judy, things got ugly. According to this account, “violent discord arose.” Nelly (baked) threw a stool at her husband. Simon (boiled) smacked his wife with a broom.
They decided to compromise, boiling the cake, then baking it. Eggs were broken in the fracas and the resulting egg wash was used to give the cake a shiny gloss. Over time, Simon and Nelly’s cake was shortened to just the first parts of their names “and it has ever since been known as the cake of Sim-Nel, or Simnel,” according to the Bury history.
That sounds pretty unlikely.
Answer Man found old simnel cake recipes that called for wrapping the batter in cheesecloth and boiling it for a couple of hours before baking it. He opted for a simpler modern interpretation from “The British Baking Book” by Regula Ysewijn, who adapted it from a 1914 British “cookery” book by May Byron.
And so on Thursday morning, Answer Man put on the first Mothers of Invention album and got a-bakin’.
He was proud he’d found what the Brits call “superfine” sugar — or caster sugar — but disappointed he couldn’t find any candied citrus peel. He fished out the orange bits from a jar of marmalade instead. And he opted for store-bought marzipan for the frosting and the 11 balls that traditionally top the cake in its Easter mode — one ball for each Apostle (minus you-know-who).
The result? Not bad. It was rather currant-heavy — it calls for as much in currants as in flour and almond meal — and had a flavor reminiscent of a Garibaldi biscuit.
Answer Man’s wife said she liked it — especially after moistening it with some whipped cream.
The simnel cake is unlikely to become a tradition in Answer Man’s household, but he was glad to learn about this ancient treat. Happy Mother’s Day, whomever you may celebrate.
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