Simnel Cakes (Mid-week Message)

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

March 14, 2012

Many people think that a Lenten fast is an unremitting discipline from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday.  But if you count up the days between those two dates, you find that Lent, supposedly a 40 day fast, actually lasts 46 days.  That is because the Lenten fast does not include the six Sundays of Lent, which, as all Sundays, are weekly commemorations of the resurrection of Christ and thus are considered feast days. 

Traditionally in France and England, pastry shops maintained some of their regular business during Lent by taking advantage of the weekly Feast of Sunday.  They would bake on Friday and Saturday special cakes of fine wheat flour marked with sugar crosses for  eating on Sunday throughout Lent.  They are called Simnel Cakes, from the Latin for “fine flour,” simila. They are the mid-Lent cousin of Easter’s “Hot Cross Buns.” 

They were particularly popular on the 4th Sunday of Lent, Laetare (“gladden”) Sunday, also called Refreshment or Rose Sunday (after the pink vestments often used on that day instead of Lenten violet).  In the U.K., this Sunday became known as Mothering Sunday.  Children of all ages were expected to pay a formal visit to their mothers and to bring a Simnel cake as a gift.   In return, the mothers gave their children a special blessing.   Large householders were expected to give their servants time off to visit out-of-town mothers. 

 SIMNEL CAKES
A Traditional Lenten Cake
for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

Ingredients

1 ½ C butter
 4  C flour
 8 eggs
 1 t salt

 4  C sugar
 2/3 C grated lemon & orange peel
 2  C currants
 8 oz. (or more) almond paste

Mixing & Baking Directions

Cream butter and sugar until smooth.
Add eggs singly, beating after each one
Sift and add flour and salt.
Dust peel and currants with flour and add to batter.

Line 12" x 15" greased pan with waxpaper.
Pour in ½ batter.

Place almond paste in layer over first half of batter.

Pour in remaining batter. 
Bake at 300 degrees for one hour.
May be iced if desired (tubed in small “+” forms).
Cut cake into small 1" squares with “+” on each one.  It is very rich. (Freezes well.)

(Recipe from: The Christian Year, A Cookbook for Holy Days & Seasons by the Women of St. Thomas of Canterbury Church, Roanoke, Virginia.)

--Fr. Tony+