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Battenberg Cake
The pink-and-yellow chequerboard wrapped in marzipan — created for a royal wedding in 1884 and still the most architecturally satisfying slice on any cake stand.
- Prep
- 45 min
- Cook
- 25 min
- Total
- 70 min
- Yield
- Serves 8
- Difficulty
- Involved
- Era
- Victorian (1884)
Ingredients
- 175g soft butter; 175g caster sugar; 3 eggs
- 175g self-raising flour; 50g ground almonds; few drops almond extract
- Pink food colouring
- 4 tbsp apricot jam, warmed and sieved
- 250g marzipan; icing sugar, to roll
Method
Oven180°C350°FFan 160°CGas 4
- Heat the oven to 180°C / 350°F (fan 160°C, gas 4). Line a 20cm square tin with a foil divider down the middle.
- Beat everything except the colouring to a smooth batter.
- Colour half the batter pink; fill the two halves of the tin separately.
- Bake 22–25 minutes until risen and springy. Cool completely.
- Trim the sponges and cut each into two long rectangles.
- Assemble in chequerboard fashion, brushing jam between the strips.
- Roll the marzipan into a rectangle, wrap the cake tightly with the seam underneath, and crimp the top edges. Slice to serve.
Oven temperatures are given in Celsius, Fahrenheit, fan and gas mark throughout. Quantities are metric, as cooked and written in the UK.