How To Make A Battenberg

This week’s recipe is a classic, if you’re from the UK, you’ll know it. I’ll be showing you how to make a Battenberg cake.

If you have never tried or heard of a Battenberg, I’ll give you a quick run down. A Battenberg is a vanilla sponge cake, which is coloured pastel pink and yellow. It’s held in place by apricot jam and finished with a layer of marzipan. You should have a check pattern on the inside as you alternate the layers of cake.

Making the cake isn’t at all difficult, you’ll be using the traditional creaming method (this is where you start by creaming the butter and sugar together, adding the eggs and vanilla, incorporating the dry ingredients and then colouring the cake batter.

The marzipan coating/finishing may not be for everybody, but it’s needed on this recipe. Traditionally you would use standard marzipan but I only had golden marzipan left in my cupboard (this was from Christmas and when I didn’t use it, I was going to make a Simnel cake at Easter but that didn’t happen so I needed to use it up and this was the perfect recipe for it).

As with all my recipes, before you get started, you’ll want to do some prep work. Get your ingredients measured/weighed up, prepare your tin (if you want to, I didn’t but you know your tin) and get any equipment you may need ready. Taking these few extra steps can lower the chance of making a mistake.

Ingredients:

 

175g Butter.

175g Granulated sugar.

3 Eggs.

250g Plain flour.

2 tsp Baking powder.

½ tsp Vanilla extract.

Pink and yellow food gel/pastes.

60-80g Apricot jam.

350g Marzipan.

 

Method:

 

Before you get into making the cake, you’ll want to do some prep work. Start by weighing up all of your ingredients, line your tin (if you decide to) and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f and get any equipment you intend on using.

 

To start on the cake, you’ll want to get yourself a mixing bowl and place the butter and granulated sugar into it. Then beat the two together until they are fully combined.

 

Once they are combined, you can add the eggs one at a time, beating well in-between each addition. Once all of the eggs have been added and are incorporated, you can add your vanilla in and mix to incorporate (if your mixture scrambled a little at this stage, don’t worry. We will correct it in the next stage).

 

Next you’ll want to add your dry ingredients, passing through a sieve first, this is just to remove any lumps that may be in the dry mix. Incorporate the dry ingredients over a low speed to start with, working your way up to a medium-high speed (you shouldn’t be able to see a single trace of any ingredient but try to not over-mix the cake batter at this stage).

 

Divide the cake batter in two and colour one pink and the other yellow. I recommend that you start by adding a little and working in more, it’s easier to add colouring rather then trying to take it away…

 

Put the cake batter into the tin and level it out as best you can, don’t overlap/combine the colours too much. You can make a little divide using some cardboard wrapped in tin/silver foil but I didn’t do this. Once they are levelled and sorted, place into your preheated oven and allow to bake for 30-35 minutes (or until a tester comes out clean).

 

Once your cakes are baked, allow to cool completely before you intend on using them. Once they are cool enough, you’ll want to level the top off using a cake leveller or a knife and then trim the sides as well, this is just to remove the caramelised edges. Cut each cake in half so you end with 2 strips of pink and yellow cake.

 

Place your apricot jam into either a small saucepan or microwaveable bowl and warm your jam until is much more spreadable. While that warms, you can roll out your marzipan on a surface which has been dusted with icing sugar.

 

Once your jam is warmed, brush each of your cake slices with the apricot jam and with the remaining, brush it over the marzipan. Place the sticks of cake together and then place onto the marzipan, around 1cm away from the edge and then wrap the marzipan around the cake, applying a little pressure to ensure it stays in place.

 

Trim away the ugly edges and enjoy!

 

That’s all for this week guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back next week with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my Instagram and Twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below!