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Waitrose

 
 

Apple and ginger simnel cake

  • Vegetarian
Preparation time:
35 minutes
Cooking time:
1 hour 15 minutes
Total time:
1 hour 50 minutes 5 minutes
Serves:
 11

Ingredients

  • 200g Cooks’ Ingredients crystallised stem ginger, cut into pea-sized pieces
  • 250g Cooks’ Ingredients white marzipan
  • 200g essential Waitrose butter
  • 300g light brown muscovado sugar
  • 3 large eggs, 1 beaten
  • 25g fresh root ginger, grated
  • 200g Waitrose self-raising flour
  • 1 cooking apple, peeled, cored and grated

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 170C, gas mark 3. Line a 20cm round, loose-bottom cake tin with baking parchment
  2. Melt the butter in a pan and stir in the sugar. Allow to cool slightly, then beat in 2 eggs and the root ginger. Stir in the flour, then the apple and crystallised ginger.
  3. Turn the mixture into the tin, put this on a baking sheet, then bake in the oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes (cover with baking parchment if it is browning too quickly). When it’s cooked, a skewer will come out with a few moist crumbs on it.
  4. Heat the grill. Roll out 200g marzipan to make a 20cm circle. Add the trimmings to the remaining 50g marzipan and shape into 11 marble-sized balls. Lay the circle of marzipan on top of the cake, and brush with some beaten egg. Arrange the marzipan balls around the edge and brush with more egg. Grill the cake until the marzipan is patched with golden brown. Leave to cool in the tin.

Cook's tips

Keep fresh ginger in a bag in the
freezer instead of in the fridge.
It’s easy to grate just what you need
then return it to the freezer.

Comments and images

Average user rating 4 stars out of 5

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CaroR

CaroR 07 May 2010 12:34

When I made this, cooking apples were not readily available - but pears were. I switched the apple for two grated conference pears. The result was an absolutely delicious, moist variation. I also left off the marzipan (my husband hates it!). Just sieve some icing suger over the top through a home-made paper pattern (fun for the kids), for a pretty, less seasonal, alternative.

LozzyP

LozzyP 05 April 2010 13:30

I made this for easter after spotting it in the latest Waitrose magazine. A beautiful and moist cake but two things I would recommend if you make it 1. I used half the amount of each type of ginger (which was plenty) and added a couple of handfuls of sultanas. 2. watch it VERY closely under the grill or use a cook's blowtorch for even more control - my first marzipan topping was burnt to a char in seconds so i had to scrape it off and start again!

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Nutritional Info

Typical values per serving:
Energy 470.0kcal
Sugars 54.0g
Fat 21.0g
Saturated Fat 11.0g
Salt 0.6g

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This recipe was first published on Waitrose.com in April 2010