Battenberg cake

I've had a massive craving for battenberg cake for weeks, likely due to it appearing as a challenge in the first week of the latest series of the Great British Bake Off on tv, but somehow I only got around to making one last week. It was definitely worth the wait though. I bloody love a battenberg and to be honest it's a wonder I don't make them more often. A homemade battenberg cake is rather lovely.

I initially had plans for a fancier flavour combination, such as chocolate and orange, but the urge to make a classic pink and yellow chequered almond sponge was too strong. I'm so glad I went down the classic route, it was so yummy! As with most almond bakes I also found it tasted even better the following day.

It's not the neatest of battenberg cakes, but I'm amazed it turned out looking this presentable. Despite thinking I had coated my work surface liberally with icing sugar to stop the marzipan from sticking when rolling out, my marzipan stuck really badly. There were a few tense minutes of me very carefully unpeeling it from the table so I could wrap it around the cake. Somewhat miraculously I only ended up with couple of small tears and they were easily covered with marzipan flowers which I made from little stamp cutters from the left overs. Regardless of the tears, I think I'll use these cutters again on a battenberg cake as they make a really cute decoration. Also, it's fun to use the cutters and I feel bad about rarely using them!

Now that I've finally made a battenberg cake my thoughts have fully turned to festive bakes. I've spent the last couple of years making the same few things, but I'd really like to try some new recipes this year. I've bookmarked a couple so far, hopefully I'll get around to it.

Anyone else got festive bakes on the brain? I'd love to hear what other folk are planning to make.

Battenberg cake

Recipe from "Vintage Cakes" by Jane Brocket.

175g soft butter (I used Stork baking margarine)

175g caster sugar

3 large eggs

A few drops of almond extract

150g self raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

40g ground almonds

Pink food colouring gel (A few drops to achieve your desired colour)

A couple of heaped tablespoons of your desired jam (recipe suggests apricot, I used raspberry)

500g pack of marzipan

Preheat the oven to 180C/ 160C Fan/ gas mark 4. Grease and line a 20cm square cake tin with greaseproof paper. Create a divider for the tin using a strip of card (such a cereal box) cut the same length as the inside of the tin. You want it to fit snugly so your two cake mixtures stay separate whilst baking. Cover the card in a sheet tin foil (so the card doesn't burn) and then again with greaseproof paper so the cake batter doesn't stick to it either.

Whisk together the butter and sugar in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking well after each addition. Add the almond extract.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour and baking powder. Add the ground almonds and mix. Tip this dry mixture into the wet egg mixture and gently fold together until everything is combined.

Divide the mixture equally into 2 bowls (I weighed mine and they were roughly 325g each.) Pour one mixture into one half of the cake tin and mix a few drops of the pink food colouring into the other. Mix until the colour is well distributed and your desired shade of pink and pour into the other half of the tin.

Bake the cake on the middle shelf of the oven for approximately 25 minutes (although I think mine took longer, like 30-35 minutes) until well risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack before lifting the two sponges out the tin.

Once cool, cut both sponges in half length ways and trim all edges so they're all the same length and have straight sides. Eat the off cuts, they're baker's perks!

Dust your work surface and rolling pin with icing sugar and roll out the marzipan to the length of your cake and long enough so that it fully wraps around the cake. (About 45cm long.)

Warm the jam gently in a small pan over the hob then with a blunt knife or pastry brush, put the jam onto the sides of the pink and plain sponges. Assemble them in a chequerboard fashion and place in the centre of the rolled out marzipan. Brush with more jam, to make  sure it is all held together and brush all the sides to make sure the marzipan sticks to the cake.

Wrap the marzipan around the cake, pressing it gently but firmly so the jam sticks. Overlap the marzipan over the top to make a seam (which will become the base) and trim with a sharp knife. Also trim the ends to make the cake look tidy. Leave plain, crimp the edges of the marzipan or cut out decorations with any left over marzipan.

almond and banana bread

Sometimes I feel like the only thing I bake is banana bread. Perhaps I should start eating bananas before they get to that ugly stage so I can bake other things.

It was the usual situation of having stuff to use up: 3 small rotting bananas, a 100g lump of marzipan left over from my carrot and coconut battenberg cake and 2 nearly empty packets of ground and flaked almonds. My banana bread was destined to be heavily almond flavoured.

For whatever reason this cake seemed to take ages to bake. It looked cooked on top just after an hour but felt decidedly gloopy when I stuck a skewer in the middle. I think it ended up being in the oven for about 1hr 30 minutes. I'm wondering whether the grated marzipan affected the bake.

It all turned out pretty good in the end though. A lovely, crunchy crust with a soft crumb. Almond and banana are both strong flavours but I think they play together happily in this loaf. My only change would be to roll out the marzipan to bake in the middle instead of grating it. I think a squidgy layer of marzipan would have made a lovely texture contrast.

Almond and banana bread
Banana bread recipe adapted from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

100g (4oz) margarine or softened butter
175g (6oz) caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp almond essence
2 bananas (I used 3 small)
200g (7oz) self raising flour
25g  (1oz) ground almonds
1 level tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk
100g block of marzipan, grated
a handful of flaked almonds to scatter on top

Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas 4 and line a 2lb loaf tin with baking parchment. Put all the ingredients except the flaked almonds in a large bowls and mix together for about 2 minutes until smooth and well combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and scatter the flaked almonds on top. 

Bake in the middle of the oven for roughly 1 hour 30 minutes until well risen, firm to touch and skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. I would check on the cake after an hour in case it cooks quicker than it did in my oven. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

carrot and coconut battenberg cake

I've had this recipe bookmarked for ages as I've been itching to make a battenberg cake for a while and I was really intrigued by the flavours of this version.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out; it's a classic with a twist. In hindsight I could have decorated the cake with one of those fancy crimped edges that Paul and Mary would have done on the Great British Bake Off, but ultimately I just want to tidy up the kitchen and eat the cake. It's a wonder I can restrain myself long enough to take a few photographs for the blog.

I'm not sure how to describe the flavour of this cake. The dominant flavour is almond, obviously due to the marzipan (mmmm, marzipan) followed by apricot as it is in both the sponge and the jam, then the warming spices of cinnamon and ginger. Despite carrot and coconut being in the title of the recipe I'd say they provide texture and  moisture rather than big flavour. They're there, but more subtle.

The carrot cake half didn't rise as well as the coconut half so I had a bit of levelling to do once the cakes were cool. I'm assuming that's due to extra moisture from the carrots, apricot chunks and orange food colouring. Other than that the cake came together very smoothly. Although I'm generally not keen to add food colouring to cakes, I love the extra punch the orange colouring adds to the carrot cake half. It really enhances the classic battenberg chequerboard pattern.

If you love battenberg cake and fancy something a little bit different then I'd definitely recommend giving this recipe a go :)

Carrot and coconut battenberg cake

Recipe (marginally adapted) from "Peek-a-boo cakes" by Joanna Farrow. Pub. 2014

carrot sponge:

100g margarine

100g light soft brown sugar

2 eggs, large

100g self-raising flour

1/2tsp baking powder

1/2tsp ground ginger

1/2tsp ground cinnamon

75g carrot, finely grated

40g dried apricots, finely chopped

25g ground almonds

orange food colouring

coconut sponge:

100g margarine

100g caster sugar

2 eggs, large

100g self-raising flour

25g dessicated coconut

1/2 tsp baking powder

decoration:

200g apricot jam

375g marzipan

icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C/160 Fan/Gas 4. Cut a strip of cardboard the same length and depth as a 8" / 20cm square cake tin (I used a cereal box). Cover the strip with baking foil and fit it down the centre of the tin. Grease and line the bases and sides of the two sections with greaseproof paper.

In a large bowl, beat together all the carrot cake ingredients, excluding the food colouring, for about a minute until smooth. Add some food colouring to enhance the "carrot" colour, mix well, then pour the mixture into one side of the tin. Level the surface.

In another large bowl, beat together all the coconut cake ingredients for a minute until smooth. Pour the mixture into the other side of the tin and level the top so it rises evenly. Bake the cakes in the centre of the oven for about 40 minutes until well risen and just firm to touch. Cool on a wire rack before peeling off the greaseproof paper.

Once the cakes are completely cool, set them side by side on a work surface and level their height using a sharp knife. It's important they're the same height for stacking. Trim the sides of the cakes if necessary as well. Cut each sponge in half lengthwise so you have 4 strips of sponge. Warm the jam in a saucepan on the hob to slacken it and remove any lumps with a sieve if necessary. Use half the jam to stick the sponges together, stacking them in a chequered pattern.

Sprinkle a layer of icing sugar on a work surface and roll out 375g of the marzipan in a rectangular shape until it is big enough to wrap around the cake. Brush the marzipan with the remaining warm jam, put the cake in the centre and wrap the marzipan up over the sides. Trim until neat and turn the cake over so the overlap is at the bottom. Brush the ends of the cake with any remaining jelly and any left over/spare marzipan can be used be roll out into squares to cover the ends.

Chocolate and vanilla marble cake and some cupcakes

Last Friday was spent baking with my two best friends. (How on earth did a week pass so quickly?!)Our bake-athons don't happen very often anymore, due to us being boring adults living in different places, but they are still fun when they do happen.

Apologies for the photo quality. These were all taken with my phone.

This is a classic compromise cake. Chocolate or vanilla? Both! Pink or chocolate icing? Both! Marshmallows, chocolate stars or Barbie sprinkles for decoration? CHUCK IT ALL ON!

We also baked some marshmallow cupcakes from the first Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. The melted marshmallow for the cupcake centre is the most unruly thing I've ever worked with. It was near impossible to put it inside the cupcake so we gave up after a four and put jam in the rest. Half the batch were finished with pink vanilla butter icing and marshmallows and the rest were covered with a layer of marzipan.

I love how it looks like a plain chocolate cake, but all is revealed when you cut into it.

There's always something exciting about a marble cake because you can never really predict how the marbled effect will turn out. Well, I find it exciting. Maybe I don't get out enough?(!)

We enjoyed a slice of cake each after dinner with a cuppa.

I enjoyed our marble cake so much that I made another one this week at home. Unfortunately it got devoured before my camera got anywhere near it.

Chocolate and vanilla marble cake

We used the one-weight method for our cake where the weight of the eggs are equal to the weight of the butter, sugar and self-raising flour . We used three eggs which weighed roughly 175g/6oz so that was our weight for everything else.

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and grease and line two 7 inch tins. Creamed the butter and sugar until light and fluffy then gradually added the eggs and fold in the flour. Divide the mixture into two bowls, adding cocoa powder (to taste) to one half and a few drops of vanilla extract to the other half. Add a small amount of milk to the chocolate mixture to slacken it after adding the cocoa powder.  Haphazardly dollop the mixtures alternately into the two tins and bake them in the centre of the oven for roughly 20-25 minutes until springy to touch. Leave the cakes to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Once cool, sandwich the sponges together with vanilla butter icing and ice the top layer with chocolate butter icing. Decorate with marshmallows, sprinkles or whatever you fancy!

Eoin's Battenberg Birthday

It takes a lot of courage for a man to request a partially pink cake for his Birthday. I was truly impressed and more than delighted to bake one. I've never made a battenberg cake before so I was really pleased with how it turned out. It was fun and not too complicated to make either. I doubled my go-to sponge recipe, making one half pink, and baked it in an oblong tin using a strip of cereal box as a divider. Cut the cake sections in half, reassemble, stick together with jam and roll it up in marzipan - hey presto you've got yourself a battenberg!

The battenberg train hurtling towards the tunnel. Choo choo!

Like I said in the previous post, no Thomson birthday is complete without trifle. There was left over cake from making the battenberg so Eoin ended up with a beast of a trifle.

Why yes, we always blow our birthday candles out on the livingroom mantlepiece. Don't really know why it ended up there, lack of tables perhaps?

Isn't it pretty!