Battenberg Cake

Battenberg cake is sometimes called church window cake and was designed to celebrate the marriage of Princess Victoria to (Queen Victoria’s granddaughter) to Prince Louis of Battenberg In 1884.

200g Butter (soft)

200g Caster Sugar

4 Eggs

75g Ground Almonds

175g Self Raising Flour

1/2 Tsp Baking Powder

Apricot Jam

500g Marizpan

Pink and Yellow Food Colouring

1 tsp Almond Essence

Line an 8” square tin with parchment and create a divider out of tinfoil to section the tin into half.  (I had a special tin that could be sized to create two 8” x 4” rectangles).

Cream the butter and sugar then add the eggs one at a time, followed by the flour, almonds, Baking powder and almond flavouring.  Mix until combined.  Divide the mixture equally and colour one half pink and the other half yellow.  Put mixtures into the tin and bake for 25 minutes on 170c or until springy.

When cool, shave the ends and sides off to get rid of the crusts and create four equal sized blocks of cake.  Sandwich the cake together with alternate colours next to each other.

Roll out marzipan into a rectangle the length of the cake.  Smear warm jam on the marzipan then roll it tightly around the cake and pinch to seal the join.  Trip marzipan as necessary.