Recipe
Checkerboard Battenberg Cake
A neat British sponge cake with almond flavour, pink-and-yellow checkerboard layers and a soft marzipan finish, made for afternoon tea or a celebratory weekend bake.
Ingredients
Method
45 mins prep30 mins cook90 mins total
Heat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C conventional/Gas 6. Grease a 20cm square tin and line it with baking paper, folding a sturdy divider through the centre.
Beat the softened butter and caster sugar until pale. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then fold in the self-raising flour, almond flour and almond extract.
Spoon half the batter into one side of the tin. Tint the remaining batter pink with the food colouring and spoon it into the other side, levelling both sections.
Bake for 25–30 minutes, until the sponges spring back when pressed lightly. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer to a rack and cool completely.
Trim the edges and cut each sponge lengthways into two even strips. Brush the strips with apricot jam and stack them in alternating colours to make a checkerboard.
Roll the marzipan on a surface dusted with icing sugar. Brush the outside of the assembled cake with more jam, wrap it in the marzipan and trim the seam neatly.
Notes
Cool both sponges completely before cutting and assembling. A sharp knife gives the checkerboard its clean edges; dust the work surface with icing sugar when rolling the marzipan.
About this recipe
Checkerboard Battenberg is a cheerful British cake with a little more theatre than an ordinary sponge. Two almond-scented cakes, one tinted pink, are cut into neat strips and arranged so the contrasting squares appear when the cake is sliced.
Apricot jam holds the sponge together before the cake is wrapped in marzipan and finished with a light dusting of icing sugar. The key to a clean result is patience: let the cakes cool fully, trim the edges carefully and roll the marzipan large enough to cover the assembled block without stretching it.
