Week 19 - Battenberg Cake

Battenberg Cake

 Everyone in my family loves Battenberg cake so I tried making it for the first time and it went pretty well.

Makes: 2

Serves: 20

Prep: 40 mins

Cook: 30 mins

Total time: 1h 10 mins

For Cakes

360 g very soft unsalted butter
350 g golden caster sugar 
280 g self-raising flour
100 g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
6 medium eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp almond extract + 1 tsp for yellow cake
⅛ tsp yellow food colouring gel
⅛ tsp pink food colouring gel

For marzipan

2 x 500g blocks yellow or white marzipan
300 g (¾ cup) apricot jam
1 cup (1 cup) confectioners' sugar - for rolling and dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 180.C/160.C fan/Gas 4. Line the base and sides of two 20cm x 20cm square baking tins with baking paper

2. Place the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and almond extract into the bowl of a mixer. Add dry ingredients. Mix, until smooth.

3. Divide the mixture into two (weigh it out to ensure it's even). Add almond extract and the yellow food colouring to one bowl and mix together. Add the pink food colouring to the other bowl and mix. You want a vibrant yellow and pink colour, so add a little more colouring if needed.

4. Spoon one of the mixtures into one tin, and the other into the other tin. Smooth the top and ensure the cake batter is spread into the corners. Place in the oven and bake for 25-30 mins until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

5. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Roll out one of the marzipan blocks on a surface that's been dusted with lots of icing sugar. It needs to be a little more than 20cm wide, and long enough to wrap around the cake (about 40cm).

6. Heat the apricot jam in microwave for a few seconds until runny. Take one of the cakes and trim the sides and top so that cooked edges are cut off (you can leave the bottom). Cut the sponge into four long fingers (they don't have to be square).

7.Repeat with the other sponge.

8. Brush centre of the rolled marzipan with apricot jam (see picture), then lay a yellow sponge finger on top. Brush the side of the yellow sponge, and stick a pink sponge finger to it. Brush the top of the two sponge fingers with jam and place the other two fingers on top (with jam in between those two fingers), so you have a checkerboard effect.

9. Spread jam on the rest of the marzipan then fold up the sides - making sure it's quite tight, and well adhered to the sponge. Fold the edges back on top of the cake and press them together. Trim the excess marzipan off the top of the cake.

10. Repeat this process for the other cake