Battenberg cake
Battenberg cake is a light sponge cake. When cut in cross section, displays a distinctive two-by-two check pattern alternately coloured pink and yellow. The cake is covered in marzipan and, when sliced, the characteristic checks are exposed to view. These coloured sections are made by dyeing half of the cake mixture pink, and half yellow, then cutting each resultant sponge into two long, uniform cuboids, and joining them together with apricot jam, to form one cake. Established variations are for coconut flavouring to the sponge cake and lemon curd or raspberry jam in place of apricot jam.[1]
The cake was created in honour of the marriage in 1884 of Queen Victoria's granddaughter to Prince Louis of Battenberg, with the four squares representing the four Battenberg princes: Louis, Alexander, Henry and Francis Joseph.
For almond sponge
175g very soft butter
175g golden caster sugar
140g self-raising flour
50g ground almonds
½ tsp baking powder
3 medium eggs
½ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp almond extract
For pink sponge
1 x ingredients for almond sponge
pink food colouring, we used ½ tsp Squires rose food paste
To assemble
200g apricot jam
2 × 500g blocks white marzipan
little icing sugar, for dusting
