The Simnel Cake Dilemma

When do you eat your Simnel cake? The BBC Good Food page online describes it as an Easter cake, and it seems to be Easter when they are promoted in supermarkets. I can sense my grandmother turning in her grave! She always made a Simnel cake for Mothering Sunday, the traditional time for this cake.

So, when do you eat yours? (If you eat one at all of course.) I think you have to be both a lover of marzipan, as well as of fruit cake, to really enjoy Simnel cake. This cake came to mind as I sat down to write this, because it is now just a year since Fr Jerry and I came to live in Shoreham, and in our first weeks we were church hopping. I remember being very impressed that on Mothering Sunday, at St Nicolas Church, we were given a slice of Simnel cake (thank you Revd Pat Alden). I remember thinking “well at least here they know when it should be eaten”!

Simnel cakes have been known since at least medieval times and they were associated with Mothering Sunday, or Laetare Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent — roughly in the middle of Lent — when the Lenten fast is lifted, and we can eat cake! In centuries past, this was a time of year when food, harvested in autumn, was running out & the Simnel cake was a high calorie food, designed to fill you up. It became a tradition for the cake to be taken by servants to their mothers on this day, often the only day of the year they had off.

Mothering Sunday

This year Laetare Sunday (or Mothering Sunday) fell on 10^th March and, here at The Church of the Good Shepherd, we had an All Age Service to celebrate Mothering Sunday. As far as I can tell, it is only in the UK, Ireland and Nigeria that this day is celebrated as a secular Mothers’ Day, retaining a connection with the Christian Calendar. It is one of those Sundays when it is a little easier to invite family, friends or neighbours to church, so think if you can ask someone to our service that day. 

Of course, we need to remember that Mothering Sunday is not a joyful day for everyone. There will be many people grieving for a mother who has died, and others whose relationship with their mother is far from easy. And some will have no memories of their birth mother and may or may not have been “mothered” by someone else. We always need to be sensitive to those who find the day difficult. 

When will you eat yours?

So in conclusion, if you like Simnel Cake, when will you eat yours this year? Personally, I like to keep to tradition and go for Mothering Sunday; but it is a cake which reminds us of the Easter story, with its eleven balls of marzipan representing the disciples of Jesus, minus Judas. So, if you want to go for an Easter Sunday Simnel Cake, then so be it. 

And remember this year Easter is early and falls on the last Sunday of March, on the same day British Summer Time begins. It means if you want to make the Easter Sunday Sunrise service on the beach, you need to remember to put your clocks forward and go to bed extra early!

Mthr Anne-Marie