Quite a few years ago I was watching the Great British bake off and the technical challenge was a battenburg. I had a go as I have always loved battenburg cake and wanted to challenge myself!
I love anything with almond but this cake reminds me of visits to my Grandparents house as we would always have battenburg with a cup tea when we visited.
I also baked this Battenburg recipe and took it to Paul Hollywoods live tour quite a few years ago and he judged a selection of bakes and mine came first to my amazement!!!
So I am very proud of this recipe and to have it judged by Paul Hollywood was a real honour! As you can see below they ate quite a lot of it too!!!!
This year on the Bake Off they made mini battenburg and this spurred me on to find my recipe and finally make it for my blog! It really is worth the effort.
To start preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade (160 fan) and grease a Silverwood battenburg tin.
Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, almonds and almond extract in the bowl of a stand mixer.
Mix until all the ingredients are fully incorporated.
Put half the mixture into two of the compartments of the prepared tin and level.
Add the pink food colouring to the other half of the mixture and stir with a spatula. Put this mixture into the other two compartments and level.
Bake for 25 minutes. Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin.
Trim the edges of the cakes so they are nice and square.
Assemble the cakes into a chequerboard pattern sandwiching them together with the apricot jam.
Roll out the marzipan into a rectangle approx 20 x 30cm.
Brush one side of the cake with the jam and place that side downwards in the middle of the marzipan.
Brush the other sides with the remaining jam.
Wrap the marzipan round the cake tightly and seal the joint using an icing smoother tool. Use a smoothing tool to make sure the marzipan is smooth and tightly around the cake.
Trim the ends to neaten and decorate with the off cuts of marzipan if desired.
Slice to serve.
Battenburg Cake
Sarah’s servings: 8
Sarah’s skill: Hard
Baking time: 25 minutes
INGREDIENTS
175g unsalted butter, softened
175g caster sugar
3 large eggs
125g self raising flour
50g ground almonds
1 tsp almond extract
2-3 drops pink food colouring
6 tbsp apricot jam, warmed
454g block of marzipan
Icing sugar for rolling out marzipan
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan) and grease a battenburg tin.
Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, almonds and almond extract in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until all the ingredients are fully incorporated.
Put half the mixture into two of the compartments of the prepared tin and level.
Add the pink food colouring to the other half of the mixture and stir with a spatula. Put this mixture into the other two compartments and level.
Bake for 25 minutes. Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin.
Trim the edges of the cakes so they are nice and square.
Assemble the cakes into a chequerboard pattern sandwiching them together with the jam.
Roll out the marzipan into a rectangle approx 20x 30cm.
Brush one side of the cake with the jam and place that side facing downwards on the middle of the marzipan.
Brush the other sides with the remaining jam.
Wrap the marzipan round the cake tightly and seal the joint using an icing smoother tool.
Trim the ends to neaten and decorate with the off cuts of marzipan if desired.
Slice to serve.
Equipment Used
SARAH’S EXTRA SLICE
If you don’t have a battenburg tin split the mix between 2 1lb loaf tins. You will need to cut each mix into two even sized oblongs when the cakes have cooled completely.
As this is an all in one recipe make sure your butter is nice and soft.
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