Time for Simnel Cake and other surprises

I look forward to the Easter weekend as a time when we celebrate renewal and rebirth. Easter is the most important Christian celebration. It culminates in Easter Sunday when we commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I also enjoy the flavours and fragrances in the garden and kitchen that reminds me of Easter. The air under the oak is heavy with the sweet smell of quinces. In the orchard the pomegranates are huge and some are bursting open, exposing their red fruit like big open wounds. Quinces are known as symbols of love and fertility. Pomegranates symbolise life and death, rebirth and eternal life and abundance. I cannot think of more appropriate fruit to have in one’s garden at this time of year.

The kitchen smells of spices and dried fruit and nuts, but mostly of almonds. A sign that Lent, a period of reflection and a time of fasting, is over.  Easter is a celebration of spices and the fragrances of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, coriander, honey, citrus peel and almonds, fill the air and flavour the baked goods.

Simnel Cake

Carol arrived on Good Friday with the aroma of spices and marzipan following her in through the front door. She had offered to bake this year’s Simnel Cake, but decided to introduce an additional surprise that honours the flavours of Easter.

Freshly baked Mystery pies 

I love Simnel Cake. The combination of marzipan and fruit cake is like Christmas all over again. In true Carol style, she had to make her own marzipan which is used on top and between the two layers of cake.

As the Simnel Cake was destined for Easter Sunday, Carol’s surprise treat came in the form of small mystery pies filled with almond paste, each decorated with an almond. The almond pies, baked using her grandmother’s pastry recipe, were a pure indulgence at breakfast and a treat at tea time.

Once more, Carol honoured a longstanding tradition at Towerwater with her Simnel cake. A treat she first introduced years ago. This year she introduced a side delicacy of her own invention.

This too will have to become part of the Towerwater Easter traditions. A little pie that reminds one of Christmas in its pastry but that surprises one with the taste of Easter in its almond filling.