Battenberg Cake

Hi there, all you gorgeous and fabulous human beings! How are you going? Took a break from blogging the past two weeks as it was getting hard to take care of my mental health in this lockdown. But with no end in sight for the lockdown right now, I have decided to appreciate the positive things in life that I do have at the moment, well at least for today! And without any question, baking is one of them. So, today I took on another baking challenge and made one of the infamous British desserts- the Battenberg Cake!

Battenberg cake, also known as the 'checkerboard cake' or, 'domino cake is basically a sponge cake where the different sections are held together with jam and then the cake covered with marzipan. When cut across, the cake presents a checkered pattern of squares of different colours. This cake first originated in the UK and is thought to have been first baked at the wedding of Princess Victoria to Prince Louis of Battenberg.

It felt great to be baking something royal in a way and this cake was so much fun to make. It was probably one of the cutest cakes I ever had the pleasure of baking.

So to start off, these are the ingredients we need to make 2 cakes:

To make the sponge cakes:

• 2 cups butter, softened

• 2 cups white sugar

• 6 eggs

• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

• 4 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon baking powder

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• 4 drops red food coloring

• 2 cups apricot jam

To make the almond paste (marzipan)

• 4 cups ground almonds

• 6 cups confectioners' sugar

• 2 egg, room temperature

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

• ½ teaspoon almond extract

Directions:

• Whisk together butter and white sugar on medium high. Beat in 6 eggs, two at a time. Then mix in vanilla, flour, baking powder and salt and whisk it all together on medium.

Note: If the batter is too thick, add in milk as needed. I added a tablespoon of milk.

• Divide the batter into 2 parts. Add red food coloring to one part to make a pretty pink colour. Grease two square pans with butter and then pour and spread the batter into the pans.

• Bake at 175 degrees C for about 25-30 minutes. Then allow the cakes to cool.

• Trim the edges of both cakes. Cut each cake vertically into 4 equal strips, trim further to match if needed.

• Add two tablespoons of boiling water to the jam and mix. Spread on sides of the cake to glue two pink and two white strips together in a checkecked pattern. Spread jam on all sides of the cake exterior. Repeat with remaining pink and white stripes.

• Making the almond paste: Mix ground almonds (you can use almond flour as well),icing sugar, eggs, lemon juice, and almond extract together. Knead until smooth, adding lemon juice or water if is too dry to roll. The end result should be a stiff fondant like structure. Cut into two equal parts.

• Roll half of the paste to stretch it out and lightly dust with icing sugar. Cut to fit the length of the cake, leaving ends uncovered.

• Lay out cake on one end of the paste. Wrap to completely cover all 4 sides of cake, closing it down on the ends to seal. Repeat the same process for the second cake. cake. Then leave the cakes to chill and slice up thinly to serve.

This is how the cake turned out. Please excuse my subpar photography skills. And this is the checkered pattern up close:

Making the cake was a really fun and immersive experience- starting from making the marzipan to gluing the pieces together with jam and finally decorating it. And it tasted pretty good too. If you're looking for something simple and fun to make that will keep you occupied for a while, I would definitely suggest giving this cute little British cake a try! Talk to you guys soon and till then, please do leave photos in the comments section if you end up making this cake at home!