Never mind all the chocolate, the food I like about Easter is the Simnel Cake.

It’s a fruit cake, though lighter than a Christmas cake, and full of marzipan. Which I adore. Like a stollen, but less bready.

I pressed into service “my” trusty slow-cooker fruit cake, with a few changes to make it less Christmassy. The treacle I switched with golden syrup. The brown sugar for caster. Cinnamon to ginger. Brandy to orange juice.

The other, major, difference is the marzipan layer. Two, in the end, with a pound of marzipan. There’s another pound, almost, on the top, too. Did I mention that I like marzipan?

Lots of mixing later, and into the slow cooker it went. Low, for lots of hours. Gosh, but it smelled good when it finally came out!

I had thought to make some chocolate nests for the central decoration, but I bizarrely found an excess of marzipan after making the eleven disciples. Tiny and I ate some, of course, but there was still more, so we made a marzipan nest instead. We also had mini eggs left over. Oh dear. Such a shame, never mind.

At the time of writing, however, it has not been taste-tested, so I’ve no idea how my adjustments have worked. Or indeed if the gluten-free flour plus a bit of xanthan gum did. My first attempt at gluten-free with xanthan gum. Trying to use up the weird magic-sand-flour. Last time I made this as a gluten-free Christmas cake I simply switched out the flour for extra ground almonds.

But I still have all that magic-sand-flour from my gluten-free cookies a couple of months ago.

And now I have a marzipan-filled Simnel cake.