A few years ago I was watching the Great British bake off and the technical challenge was a battenburg. I had a go as I have always loved battenburg cake and have made various different flavours since then.
I also made the original battenburg and took it to Paul Hollywoods live tour quite a few years ago and he judged a selection of bakes and mine came first to my amazement!!!
So this is my favourite cake with a festive twist. I like making traditional bakes with an updated flavour profile. It is mincemeat and almond for Christmas.
To start preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade (160 fan) and grease a Silverwood battenburg tin.
Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, almonds and almond extract in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until all the ingredients are fully incorporated.
Put half the mixture into two of the compartments of the prepared tin and level.
Add the mincemeat to the other half of the mixture and stir with a spatula. Put this mixture into the other two compartments and level.
Bake for 25 minutes. Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin.
Assemble the cakes into a chequerboard pattern sandwiching them together with the apricot jam.
Roll out the marzipan into a rectangle approx 20x 30cm.
Brush the marzipan with the jam and put the cake in the middle.
Wrap the marzipan round the cake tightly and seal the joint.
Trim the ends to neaten and decorate with the off cuts of marzipan in desired. Sprinkle with sieved icing sugar.
Sarah's Christmas Battenburg Cake
Sarah's servings: 8
Sarah's skill: Medium
Baking time: 25 minutes
Ingredients:
125g Unsalted soft butter
125g Caster sugar
2 Large eggs
100g Self Raising Flour
50g Ground Almonds
1/2 tsp Almond extract
3 Tbsp Mincemeat
4 Tbsp Apricot Jam.
454g Block of Marzipan
Icing sugar for rolling out marzipan
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade (160 fan) and grease a Silverwood battenburg tin.
Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, almonds and almond extract in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until all the ingredients are fully incorporated.
Put half the mixture into two of the compartments of the prepared tin and level.
Add the mincemeat to the other half of the mixture and stir with a spatula. Put this mixture into the other two compartments and level.
Bake for 25 minutes. Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin.
Assemble the cakes into a chequerboard pattern sandwiching them together with the jam.
Roll out the marzipan into a rectangle approx 20x 30cm.
Brush the marzipan with the jam and put the cake in the middle.
Wrap the marzipan round the cake tightly and seal the joint.
Trim the ends to neaten and decorate with the off cuts of marzipan in desired. Sprinkle with sieved icing sugar.
Equipment Used
Sarah’s extra slice……
If you don’t have a battenburg tin split the mix between 2 1lb loaf tins. You will need to cut each mix into two even sized oblongs when the cakes have cooled completely.
You can decorate the top with almonds or make a crosshatch pattern on the top. I used a mini Christmas tree cutter and some jam to fix into place.
It would be a winner in this house, we love all things almond! Battenburg was my Granddad’s favourite cake - he was Cumbrian, and always called it ‘winder cake’ (as in windows 🤗)