It's been on my list of things to bake for quite literally years, but I've never actually got round to buying the ingredients and giving it a go. I even have a Mary Berry recipe on stand-by, but at this stage I'd all but given up on trying it out. That's when I found this recipe for Simnel Muffins on the BBC Good Food website, and after a quick read through decided it was too perfect to purely leave bookmarked for the future.
These muffins are positively bursting with flavour - they have all of the best qualities of a traditional Simnel Cake - but are much lighter, and in muffin form they're a lot more fun to make!
The original recipe can be found on the BBC Good Food website here, but it's also below with my notes and photographs as ever.
Ingredients:
250g mixed dried fruit
1 medium orange
175g softened butter
175g golden caster sugar
3 eggs
300g self-raising flour
1 tsp mixed spice
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
5 tbsp milk
175g marzipan
200g icing sugar
3-4 tbsp orange juice
2 packs of Milkybar mini eggs
Method:
Tip the fruit into a bowl and add the zest and juice of the orange. Microwave on medium for 2 minutes (or leave to soak for 1 hour).
Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases. Preheat the oven to fan 180C / 160C /gas 4.
Mix together the butter, sugar, flour and spices in a large mixing bowl or a free-standing electric mixer with a paddle attachment.
Add the eggs and milk to the mixture and beat until light and fluffy (for about 3-5 minutes).
Stir the fruit in to the muffin batter.
Half fill the muffin cases with the mixture: for me, just under a full scoop of batter using my Lakeland ice cream scoop was perfect. I feel like I talk about this utensil waaaaay too much but it's amazing! I've never used it for ice cream, but it is utterly perfect for baking. I think I'd genuinely be lost without it...
Divide the marzipan into 12 equal pieces, roll them into balls, then flatten with your thumb to the size of the muffin cases.
Put one into each muffin case on top of the batter.
Divide the remaining mixture over the marzipan - again just under one scoop filled the cases perfectly.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, until risen, golden and firm to the touch.
Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Beat together the icing sugar and orange juice to make icing thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Drizzle over the muffins: carefully drop a teaspoon of the icing over the top of each and ease it towards the edges. It doesn't need to be neat, in fact it looks better if it's slightly messy. Immediately top each muffin with a cluster of eggs. It's best to do this as quickly as possible as the icing starts to set pretty quickly and it's annoyingly difficult to force the eggs to stick when the top layer has dried!
Leave them to set and then serve. Enjoy!
Well these were a bit of a success!
These Simnel Muffins are just literally bursting with flavour - the house smelled amazing while they were in the oven, and every time the tin of them was opened it was hard not to rush over and inhale deeply! There's a lot going on with the fruit, marzipan and orange icing, but the flavours all compliment each other really well. It's extremely traditional, but as it's Easter I see nothing wrong with that!
Ideally these need to be eaten within a day of making them as they dry out pretty quickly. The thick dollop of icing helps to mask this to a certain extent, but I still wouldn't push it past a day. As far as textures go they're not like a normal fruit cake, nor are they similar to a traditional muffin: these are much 'cakier' than expected and are almost reminiscent of a tea loaf. That's not a bad thing, though!
The layer of marzipan gives them a sweet kick in the centre, and really helps to keep them moist. I thought it'd be odd, but I stand corrected!
So, what do you think?! Could you be tempted to try out these muffins over the next few days or are you more of a fan of traditional Simnel Cake? Do let me know in the comments below!
[N.B. this post contains affiliate links to Lakeland products.]
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