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Battenberg Cake
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Battenberg Cake

A traditional cake with a unique pattern inside
Course Dessert, Snack
Cuisine British
Keyword Almond, Cake
Prep Time 2 hours
Cook Time 30 minutes
Cooling Time 2 hours
Total Time 4 hours 30 minutes
Servings 1 Cake

Equipment

  • 1 Loaf Tin & aluminum foil You can use a Battenberg tin if you have it, but a loaf tin divided with aluminum foil works too.
  • 1 Stand Mixer hand mixer works too
  • 1 Food Processor If you're buying premade marzipan, you don't need this.
  • 1 Rolling Pin Wine bottle works too
  • Wax paper
  • 1 Fine-mesh strainer Not needed, but nice to have

Ingredients

Cake Ingredients

  • 175 grams Unsalted butter softened
  • 175 grams Granulated sugar
  • 3 eggs Medium, room temp
  • 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
  • 175 grams self-raising flour If you don't have self-raising flour, you can make your own using AP flour, baking powder, and salt.
  • 1 tbsp milk 2%, whole, skim, doesn't matter
  • 1 or 2 drops of food coloring pink, red, or whatever color you want to make the cake.

Marzipan Ingredients

  • 180 grams Almond Flour
  • 140 grams Powdered Sugar
  • 40 ml water
  • 1/2 tsp Almond Extract Can use up to 1 tsp depending on personal preference
  • Food coloring Whatever color you want the marzipan to be. Gel food coloring works really well here.

Finishing Ingredients

  • 350 grams Prepared Marzipan
  • 8 Tbsp Apricot Jam You can use whatever jam you like or have on hand. I used the cherry jam I made with my parents over the summer.

Instructions

Cake Batter Instructions

  • If you're using a loaf tin, make your divider with aluminum foil, grease the entire tin, and start preheating the oven to 350 deg. F.
  • Put the butter and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer and using the whisk attachment, beat until the texture is creamy and the mixture is light in color.
  • In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and vanilla and slowly incorporate the eggs into the butter and sugar mixture.
  • Sift the flour into the bowl with the eggs and sugar and add the milk.
  • Fold all of the ingredients together using a spatula or wooden spoon.
  • Divide the cake batter in half; place one half into the tin and add food coloring to the other half and mix until batter is colored to your liking.
  • Spoon the pink or red cake batter into the other half of the divided loaf pan and bake for 25-30 min or until firm to the touch.

Marzipan

  • While the cake is cooling, add the almond flour and powdered sugar to the food processor and pulse a few times to combine
  • Add the almond extract and water to the food processor and pulse a few more times until the mixture comes together into a ball.
  • Take the marzipan out and add the food coloring and mix until color is fully incorporated.
  • Wrap marzipan in cling film and place in fridge until ready to use.

Cake Assembly

  • Remove from the oven and use a butter knife to release the cake from the sides of the tin but do not remove the cake from the tin. Let cake cool completely in the tin.
  • Once cool, remove the cake from the tin. If cakes have risen unevenly, use a large knife to trim the tops of the cakes so that you have two identical pieces.
  • Using your large knife, cut each cake section in half lengthwise. If you want to make an 8-sectioned cake like the one in the picture above, cut each piece of cake lengthwise a second time so that you have a total of 8 strips of cake, 4 strips of each color.
  • Remove marzipan from fridge and roll out between two sheets of wax paper to an 8"x12" rectangle, roughly 1/8" thick.
  • Heat up your jam with a little bit of water so that its a little runny and then pass it through a strainer to remove any big chunks of fruit. If you don't have a strainer or don't want to remove the chunks of fruit, you don't need to. Totally up to you.
  • Brush one long side of one piece of cake with jam and place it jam side down on the marzipan so that its lined up along one of the short sides of the marzipan.
  • Brush the other three sides of the piece of cake with jam. Brush a strip of yellow cake and place jam side down next to the pink strip. Brush the remaining sides of the pink piece of cake with jam.
  • Repeat two more times along the bottom for a total of 4 strips of cake along the bottom and then construct the second tier, making sure to brush all sides of each strip of cake with jam.
  • Wrap the marzipan over the top of the cake, leaving the ends of the cake exposed. Trim excess marzipan off of the edges and slice ends to neaten.
  • Top of the cake can be left plain or a pattern can be incorporated. Store cake in an airtight container.