Battenberg Cake

So I finally finished my Battenburg cake. I was originally following another recipe but the cake kept falling apart while I was trying to put it together. Then I used a recipe that I had from a previous time I made it. But I did not put enough food coloring in so the cakes came out the same color. This time I used too much, it should be pink not purple. In the end it tasted lovely. It should have wrapped the whole cake with the marizpan. It is not an overly sweet cake because the cake itself is not too sweet but nicely offsets the sweetness of the marizpan. If you have an allergy to nuts, do see if you can have marzipan because ti is made from almonds.

I used my Pure spread and rice milk in place of the milk products.

The cake itself has many beginnings in history but it was given the name Battenburg when Princess Victoria (granddaughter of Queen Victoria) married Prince Louis of Battenburg in 1884.  

Battenburg Cake

Makes: 1 cake                                   Time: 1 1/2 hours

Ingredients:

• 150g butter
• 150 g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 150 g self-raising flour
• 2 tbsp milk
• red food colouring
• icing sugar for dusting
• 50 g apricot jam
• 200 g marzipan 

Instructions:

1.      Preheat oven to 200˚C (Gas Mark 6).

2.      Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

3.      Add eggs and fold in flour and add milk and mix until smooth.

4.      Pour half cake mixture into another bowl and add a few drops of red food colouring and mix.

5.      Grease square tin and fold square of foil into a thick strip and place down the middle to divide into two.

6.      Carefully spoon pink mixture on one side and plain mix on the other side.

7.      Bake for 25-30 minutes or until springy and let cool.

8.      Roll out marzipan into rectangle long and wide enough to wrap around both cakes.

9.      Place one cake on top of other and cut into half lengthways.

10.   Gently heat apricot jam in pan until it comes runny.

11.   Brush one side of pink cake with jam and lay plain cake next to it and stick together.

12.   Brush tops with jam and place plain cake on top of pink cake and vice versa.

13.   Brush outside edges of cake with jam.

14.   Cut marzipan so that it is slightly longer than the cake.

15.   Carefully wrap and press it wrap around the cake, brushing edges with a little jam to seal them.

16.   Trim off excess marzipan at ends.

Chill for at least 30 minutes before serving

All the Best!

American to Britain