This cake was traditionally given by servant girls to their mothers when they returned home for holidays on Mothering Sunday.
Nowadays, you can buy Simnel cakes in all the bakeries, made from different récipes and with different shapes.
It is a fruit cake with two layers of marzipan, one in the middle and one on top. Eleven or twelve marzipan balls are used to decorate the cake. The balls represent the apostles minus Judas,when there are eleven or Jesús and the apostles minus Judas, when there are twelve.
The word "simnel" probably comes from the latin Word "simila" that means "fine wheaten flour".
The Simnel cake signifies the end of Lent which is a period of fasting and from that moment people are allowed to eat all the forbidden foods during Lent.
