Sue's Simnel Cake

Ingredients

175g butter
3 eggs
175g caster sugar
150g sultanas
150g raisins
100g currants
75g dried apricots, chopped
75g glacé cherries, quartered
25g ground almonds
2 tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
Zest of 1 lemon
450g marzipan
225g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
icing sugar for rolling
1 tablespoon apricot jam
1 egg white for glazing

Method

Preheat the oven to gas mark 3/170C. Grease and line the bottom and sides of a 20cm cake tin with baking parchment.

Cream the butter and sugar until very soft and light, and add the lemon zest.

Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and ginger into a bowl and then add the ground almonds, stir to combine.

Add 1 of the eggs to the creamed butter and sugar with 2 tablespoons of the dry flour-and-spice ingredients, then beat in the remaining eggs in the same way. Stir in the rest of the dry ingredients, and then the milk. Finally fold in the fruit.

Dust a surface with a little icing sugar and then roll out about a third of the marzipan. Cut it into a 20cm circle that will fit in the middle of the cake later. Spoon half of the fruit-cake mixture into the cake tin, smooth it down and then lay the marzipan circle on top. Spoon the rest of the mixture into the tin and smooth the top again. Bake for half an hour and then turn the oven down to gas mark 2/150C for another 1½ hours or until the cake has risen and is firm on top. Let it cool completely on a rack before you remove it from the tin.

Roll out another circle of marzipan, spread the apricot jam thinly on the top of the cake, and then stick it on the marzipan. Using a fork press lightly into the marzipan to create a decorative basket weave effect.

Make 11 'Apostle' balls or eggs out of the remaining marzipan, roughly 2.5cm in size. Beat the egg white and use that as glue to stick the balls around the edge of the cake.

Paint the top with egg white, and then place under the grill until the marzipan browns slightly.