How to Make Battenberg Cake

Yields: 1 cake

Preparation time: 40 mins

Cooking time: 30 mins

Ingredients needed to make Battenberg Cake:

For the cake:

• 6 oz self-rising flour
• 6 oz softened butter, plus more for greasing
• 3 eggs
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 6 oz caster sugar
• Red food colouring paste

For the covering:

• 3 tbsp icing sugar
• 1 lb readymade marzipan
• 6 tbsp apricot jam

Cooking instructions for Battenberg Cake:

• Warm up your oven to 375 degrees F.
• Butter a 8’’ square, cake pan and spread a parchment paper across the sides and base of the pan.
• Fold a 12’’x8’’ parchment paper into 3’’ square; place it at the centre of the pan so that it can create compartments in the cake which will keep two contrasting colours of sponge cake separate while baking them at the same time.
• Crack the eggs into a food processor, along with the sugar, butter as well as a splash of vanilla and whisk them together into until well combined.
• Fold in the flour gradually while beating them into the mixture until all of it is incorporated into it to form a smooth, uniform batter.
• Divide the batter equally between two bowls and whisk in red food colouring in one of the batter until mixed thoroughly.
• Pour the differently coloured batter into separate compartments of the prepared pan and level the surface with a spatula.
• Place it in the central rack of the oven and bake for half an hour or until the cakes rise.
• Set aside for about 5 minutes to cool and then run a sharp knife along the sides to free them from the pan.
• Invert it into a wire rack and continue to cool completely.
• Place one cake on top of the coloured cake and chop off the sides so that both of them are of same size.
• Slice them longitudinally into two equal halves so that you end up with four rectangles.
• Heat apricot jam in a small pan until warmed through and strain through a fine mesh sieve to smooth it out.
• Paint the longer side of each cake with this warm jam and place the different-coloured cake on top.
• Repeat the process with the other contrasting pair of sponge cakes.
• Bring the two cake sandwiches together so that they resemble a checkerboard and smother their sides and surface with jam.
• For the covering, dust a marzipan with icing sugar and flatten it out into a 16’’x10’’ rectangle of ¼’’ in thickness, using a rolling pin.
• Flip the cake ensemble carefully onto the marzipan and paint its base with jam.
• Wrap it up with the sheet of marzipan, press the open ends together to seal.
• Turn the batten berg cake over, so that the seam side is now facing down and carve out semi-thick slices.
• Serve with afternoon tea.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons