Can you have sunshine in a cake?

What could be lovelier than Easter Sunday afternoon tea with cake and a few nibbles with friends and family.  Or perhaps the tea is differed for Monday instead. 

I think this particular cake is full of sunshine, if not because of the ingredients but that's its so full of flavour and helps us celebrate Spring so well.

A lot of people think of cake as comforting, perhaps because of the sweetness or simply because cake, either served alone, with cream, custard or cheese, is probably the best thing at any time of day.

Easter is a wonderful time, not just for the obvious reasons, the reassertions of rebirth and forgiveness, but its Spring after all, and the evenings are lighter and blossom has come out to give us all hope that fresh life brings.

My Easter is probably the same as everyone else's, chocolate, Roast Chicken on Sunday and cake, in all its different forms.

The Easter cake I normally bake is based on a Victorian cherry and almond cake, just topped off with a soft marzipan cover.  It's not a traditional Simnel cake, simply because it doesn't have orange zest or the eleven marzipan balls on top.  Also, because I still have lingering nightmares of marzipan from the 1970s and 1980s, the hard, firm and dry, bright yellow marzipan of my youth, the marzipan I top this cake with is my own concoction that is just firm enough to roll out.

This is a relatively low temperature baked cake which probably needs a little greaseproof "hat" for the first half an hour of cooking.  Before taking off the hat, turn the heat up by 10 degrees for a few minutes before, and then after a few more minutes once the oven has been closed again to turn it back down to its original setting.

Cake Ingredients:

• 4 ozs (100 grams) of salted butter
• 4 ozs (100 grams) of caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs (thoroughly beaten)
• a teaspoon of orange water
• 4 ozs (100 grams) of glacier cherries
• 4 ozs (100 grams) mixed dried fruits, pre-soaked in natural yogurt
• 4 ozs (100 grams) ground almonds
• 2 ozs (50 grams) self raising flour
• half a teaspoon of baking powder

You will also need three dessert spoons of marmalade and the ingredients below for your marzipan. 

For this cake you will need a 7 inch (17.5 cms) baking tin, approximately one and half inches (4cm) deep.

Pre-heat your oven to 160 degrees centigrade (320 F), Gas mark 2

Cream together the butter and caster sugar until light.  Add the beaten eggs gradually.  If doing this by hand add a dessert spoon of the ground almonds at this point and it will help bind the eggs and butter mixture more evenly and easily.

Add the orange water and fruit next until the mixture is well combined and only then add the remaining dry ingredients through a sieve.  This is includes the soaked dried fruit along with the yogurt you steeped them in.

Fill your tin and place in the oven on the middle shelf.

Remove the hat after 30 minutes and then continue baking for another 30 to 40 minutes.  Use a metal skewer at the 30 minute mark and if it comes out clean your cake is done.

Let your cake cool in it's tin for the first 30 minutes or so before turning it out to a cooling tray.

Meanwhile, as this is cooling its time to make your "soft marzipan".  Now remember this is my own preference, so if you like a more solid marzipan either use less liquid or add more ground almonds.

Soft marzipan ingredients
(makes about 8 ozs or 400 grams)

• 3 quarter cups of caster sugar
• 5 quarter cups of icing sugar
• 8 quarter cups of ground almonds
• 1 desert spoon orange water
• 1 large egg (beaten well)
• additional icing sugar for rolling out

Sift the dry ingredients together and add the orange water and egg to make a soft dough/paste.

Work the dough until it is smooth and then place in a bowl and cover and put in the fridge for at least an hour.

When rolling out this marzipan, be generous with your icing sugar, ensuring there is plenty on the work surface as the softness of this paste makes it stick readily.  Use a tea plate to make a round to place on the top of your cooled cake.  The disk of marzipan should be slightly larger than the width of the cake.

Place the marmalade in small non-stick pan over a low heat.  As it starts to become runny, just switch off the heat.  The consistency will remain just so for about ten to fifteen minutes will be perfect to brush onto the now cooled cake.  Place the disk of marzipan on top of this.  Then, using the end of the handle of a teaspoon, flatten the overlap of the marzipan against the edge of the cake to give a scalloped pattern.

I normally serve this with, as you can see, strawberries and almond cream.