of live-in apprentices and domestic servants going home to visit their mothers on Mothering Sunday started, checking that their families were well and taking food or money if needed. This was a time of year when food stocks were low, and the high-calorie simnel cake was useful nutrition. The cake later became simply an Easter cake. The meaning of the word "simnel" is unclear: there is a 1226 reference to "bread made into a simnel", which is understood to mean the finest white bread, from the Latin , "fine flour" (from which 'semolina' also derives). John de Garlande felt that the word was equivalent to placenta cake, a cake that was intended to please. Variations Different towns had their own recipes and shapes of the Simnel cake. Both Bury and Shrewsbury produced large numbers to their own recipes. Chambers Book of Days (1869) contains an illustration of the Shrewsbury Simnel cake, of which says: Today, in Shrewsbury, as elsewhere in England, the Simnel cake is usually made with the Bury recipe. See also List of almond dishes List of foods with religious symbolism Mazurek (cake) References British cakes Easter cakes English traditions Marzipan Layer cakes