Battenberg Cake



The origin of the name is not clear, but one theory claims that the cake was created in honour of the marriage in 1884 of Queen Victoria's granddaughter to Prince Louis of Battenberg , with the four squares representing the four Battenberg princes: Louis, Alexander, Henry and Francis Joseph.

Battenberg cake is a light sponge cake. When cut in cross section, displays a distinctive two-by-two check pattern alternately coloured pink and yellow. The cake is covered in marzipan and, when sliced, the characteristic checks are exposed to view. These coloured sections are made by dyeing half of the cake mixture pink, and half yellow, then cutting each resultant sponge into two long, uniform cuboids, and joining them together with apricot jam, to form one cake. Established variations are for coconut flavouring to the sponge cake and lemon curd or raspberry jam in place of apricot jam.

You can make this cake without the special pan, but then you just have to slice them .
And me and slicing never go that good, as I know for sure I would not slice properly so I have been waiting to buy this pan for a while.
This time I made Vanilla flavoured cake and colored one half oink, next time I am gonna try diferent flavours like Vanilla and Chocolate too.

I used the recipe which was there together with the pan.

175 gm (60 ozs ) butter
175 gm (60 ozs) sugar I used only 130 gm sugar3 eggs
175 gm (60 ozs ) selfraising flour
2 tsp vanilla essence
Few drops of pink colouring
6 tbsp Apricot jam
350 gm Marzipan
Sugar for dusting

Method
Pre heat the oven to 180° c ( 350 F) Gas mark 6; grease and flour the Battenburg pan.
Cream together the butter and sugar and vanilla untill light and creamy.
Gragually add the beatern eggs.
Fold in the flour.
Divide the mixture into tow equal halves.
Put a few drops of pink color into one of the mixture and gentley mix intill an even colour is achieved.
Spoon the pink mixture into the two section of the tin, and the plain mixture into the other two sections.
Place in the center of the oven and bake for approximatley 30 - 35 minutes or untill evenly coloured and firl to touch.
Allow the cake to cool in the tin.
If the cake has rissen above the tin, use a sereated knife to cut accross the top to remove the excess cake. Remove the cake from the tin.

When completley cold, brush the abpricot jam onto the side and  join one plain and one pink slice together and then one pink and one plain on top creating a chequered pattern.
Now brush the apricot jam over the long sides.

Roll out the marzipan on some sugar making a rectangle approx 20 x 30 cm. Neaten the edges.
Place the cake into the marzipan so the one edge is lined up to the edge of the marzipan and completley wrap the marzipan around the cake.
Trim away any surplus marzipan to make a neat cake, just trim bith ends with a clean knife.
For me covering the marzipan was the most difficult part of making this cake.