
This cake is based on the usual teacake recipe I use and quite forgiving so you can mix and match ingredients if you don’t have everything!
Ingredients
For the marzipan
180g ground almonds
140g brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
3 tbsp water
For the cake
300g dried fruit (raisins, sultanas, etc.)
260ml hot tea (about one mug of tea)
40ml juice and grated peel of 1 orange
1 banana (optional)
Handful chopped apricots (optional)
250g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
100g brown sugar
1 tbsp apricot jam
Directions
- Make the marzipan by mixing together all the ingredients in a blender, squeeze into a ball and cover put in an airtight container in the fridge.
- Place the dried fruit in a bowl and pour over the hot tea, orange juice and grated peel. Cover and leave for at least 3 hrs or overnight. (A)
- Preheat the oven to 170C, grease a 20cm or bigger round cake tin. If you use a 20cm tin, there will be enough mix left over for a small teacake 🙂
- Roll out the marzipan and use the cake tin as a template to cut two marzipan circles about 1/2 cm thick
- Sift the flour, baking powder and spices into a bowl. (B)
- Add the chopped apricots, sugar and squeeze the banana through your fingers into to A (raisin mix).
- Add B (flour mix) to A and carefully stir in. If the mixture is dry add a little water, tea or soya milk.
- Put half of the mixture in the cake tin, smooth over and add a circle of marzipan. Cover the marzipan with the remaining mixture and level out the surface.
- Bake for approx. 1 hour 20 mins, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. If it looks like the top will burn, cover with foil.
- Leave to cool in the tin for about 10min, then turn out and cool on a rack.
- Once cooled, spread the top with apricot jam and press on a marzipan circle. Decorate with 12 marzipan balls and/or anything else you like! If you have marzipan left over you can make small balls and roll them in cocoa powder to make little treats.









Marzipan recipe based on:
https://elavegan.com/homemade-marzipan-recipe/ 😊🙏
This cake appeared with us in NHK’s グレーテルのかまど「英国 春を告げるシムネルケーキ」and we were also in グレーテルのかまど「朝吹真理子のスコーン」making scones and in グレーテルのかまど「英国カリスマ主婦のトライフルのレシピ」making trifle.