Happy Mother's Day mom. To show you just how grateful I am for you being a wonderful mother
to me for almost three decades now, I'm going to make you, wait for it, a traditional British
Mothering Sunday Simnel Cake.
Being my mom for a really long time, cake, yeah sounds even. This would make a lot more
sense mom, if you were British because this is what British people make for their moms.
I have all my ingredients here and I'm going to consult my cookbook. And I've got my oven
preheated to 300 degrees. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and brown sugar
until light and fluffy. Well things are kind of off to a little bit of a testy start because
I attempted to soften my butter in the microwave and ended up just melting it. One cup of butter
into one cup of brown sugar. I don't have an electric beater so this is going to have
to be my beater. Now mom I remember you once told me that if I could read a recipe than
I could cook anything. Next up I'm going to beat in four eggs one at a time. This is kind
of an alternative to an upper body workout, at least for one side. If you have an arm
that's particularly flabby then you can just get in a kitchen and beat some eggs. Workout
tips. Mom I'm not calling you fat. This cake was invented in 1623 when an ungrateful daughter
had a change of heart and she thought to herself, 'Me mum's been a pretty good mum. Perhaps
I should make her a cake. What have I in the cupboard?' And her last name was Simnel, cause
this is also known as a Siminel cake, so she was like, 'I'm making me mum a Seminal cake
for mothering Sunday which is a part of the Lent celebration in church. [Fast-forwarding].
My arm is very tired. Cooking is no joke. Am I right? Next up we have one and three-fourths
cups of self-rising flour, emphasis on the self-rising. Flour with a very healthy bit
of self-esteem that allows it to grow tall in the oven without external validation. [Singing].
Mom you had me out of your belly one day a long time ago and you put up with my shenanigans
for so long. So now I'm making you a cake and a song. Fadeout. [Fast-forwarding]. This
is where this cake gets kind of gross because the original recipe calls for golden raisins,
dried currants, candied cherries and candied mixed fruit peel, chopped. I don't know about
you, whoever you are, but I think that sounds disgusting. Also it's May and the grocery
stores are not stocking candied fruit because it's not fruitcake season. Although some places
it's always fruitcake season. I'm going to stir in my golden raisins, one and three-fourths
cups, my can of cherries, not candied, two tablespoons of lemon zest, two teaspoons of
allspice, which is a lot of allspice but nevertheless. Now I guess I could have gone with some kind
of American Mother's Day cooking tradition but the American Mother's Day cooking tradition
is to not cook at all and I can't exactly show you how to make a brunch that we bought
out. Take half of the batter, I'm going to pour it into my floured pan. [Fast-forwarding].
If that doesn't say I love you mom, I don't know what does. And in it goes. So I got my
half of the cake in the oven. What am I going to do now? Go watch reruns of Oprah? No! There's
more to be done. There's one ingredient in this mothering day cake that I'd never heard
of before. Almond paste, and almond paste is essentially blanched almonds and sugar.
You have to roll this into some kind of ball and then smear some on top of the batter that's
in the oven and then I'm going to put the rest of the batter on top of it. Okay? [Fast-forwarding].
[Singing]. Rolling. Rolling out the almond paste. Rolling out the almond paste. Rolling.
Rolling. [Fast-forwarding]. So I'm going to take the cake out of the oven, slap this layer
of almond paste on it, put the rest of the batter on top of it and put it in the oven
for two and half hours and then stare at the camera and count down the seconds. [Fast-forwarding].
I now understand why Mother's Day is the most popular day of the year to go to a restaurant.
Fact. Otherwise you end up making a fool of yourself trying to make traditional British
Mother's Day cakes. [Fast-forwarding]. Oh there's raw egg in that. Salmonella. Someone
call a doctor. Now for a montage of fun things that you can do for two and half hours while
you wait for your Mother's Day cake to bake. [Fast-forwarding]. Practice the recorder.
Try out a new look. Call your mom. Play the melody horn. [Singing]. Mother, mother, mother,
Mother's Day. Can you believe it's already been two and half hours? So my cake is cooled.
I don't know take a look for yourself. Doesn't that look interesting? Now the way to finish
this traditional British Mothering Sunday cake is that you take balls of almond paste
and you put them around the cake. Tradition says that you make eleven of these balls to
stand for the eleven apostles in the Bible. But Judas does not get his own almond paste
ball. Now I'm supposed to another layer of almond paste on top of the cake but guess
who forgot. So Mother's Day is ruined. And I'm done. So this Mother's Day Mom, I hope
that this traditional Mothering Sunday Simnel cake really shows you just how much I care.
You're my mom and I wrote that on a cake and better yet if we turn it this way it spells
wow. Because when I think of you being my mom all my life I think to myself wow. Happy
Mother's Day.