My first attempt to make a Battenberg cake was disastrous, yet it was not – nearly not – all my fault. A Battenberg looks like a clever confection but ought to be so simple: make one batch of cake batter, divide it in two and tint one part with pink food colour. Bake both; trim the cakes to make two pink batons and two yellow; stick it all together with strawberry jam and wrap in marzipan.
Everything went well. I decided, being a responsible user of food colour on occasion, to use natural pink colouring from Waitrose, made with real beetroot. The cake batter was a beautiful natural magenta. Both cakes rose beautifully in the oven, the pink one’s top turning a pretty toasty rose colour as it baked.
At this stage I thought I had triumphed. A matter of trimming and gluey jam and we’d soon be there. It was then a shock to see as I cut into it that the pink cake’s interior was as yellow as a buttercup. While the food dye was evident on the outside, inside it had disappeared: verschwunden, as they say in Battenberg.
Why? Beetroot colour is very pervasive. You will know this if you eat a plateful and then witness the way it emerges after digestion, so to speak. If you have ever slopped beetroot soup down your clothes, it takes a couple of hot washes to get rid of it. I called experts at the Jane Asher Cake Decorating shop, who advised it was better to use artificial pastes – Sugarflair Pink (£2.19, janeasher.com) isrecommended.
Experienced makers of rainbow cake, a meta-Battenberg made with seven layers of coloured sponge, will have learnt that natural colourings tend to fade. Dear Clubbers, this is an understatement. In mine it had all – and I mean all –disappeared.
(ANDREW CROWLEY)
I then did what I should have done at the beginning and read the small print on the small bottle of natural colouring I had bought. (This, for reasons of middle age, meant reading it at a distance of 3ft.) “Not bake stable,” it read. To be fair, even if I had read it at the outset, “bake stable” is a vague technical euphemism, like the one on cereal packs that warns that the contents might settle.
Well, now we know. It’s not splitting the atom, but there are two revelations: that cake colours must be synthetic; and that a white Battenberg makes a very good impression of the St George’s flag. I believe we have invented an icon here that should be on every cake shop counter come this summer’s FIFA World Cup. Out of disaster comes triumph, even if it may be only in the case of cake.
EQUIPMENT
2 loaf tins, 1kg/2lb capacity; buttered, the base lined with baking parchment, then buttered again and dusted lightly with flour.
INGREDIENTS
- 280g/10oz softened butter
- 280g/10oz caster sugar
- 5 eggs
- 280g self-raising flour
- 1 tbsp milk
- 1-2 tsp artificial pink food colouring (see above)
To assemble
- Approximately 150g/5½oz strawberry jam, blended or sieved
- 225g/8oz ready-to-use marzipan
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 175C/350F/gas 4. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl, using an electric beater or wooden spoon, until pale coloured. Add the vanilla then one egg at a time, beating well before adding each. Fold in the flour with the milk, making sure it is well incorporated.
Divide the mixture between two bowls. Add the food colouring to one, blending it in thoroughly or your cake will have a marbled appearance. Turn the pink batter into one tin, and the yellow into the other. Bake for 40 minutes or until the cakes are springy to the touch and a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Turn out the cakes on to a rack and allow to cool completely. Using a sharp thin-bladed serrated knife, cut each cake into identical-sized rectangles, about 5x5x20cm. Spread with jam to stick the pieces together in two tiers of two. Finally, spread jam on all 4 sides of the cake. Roll out the marzipan to no more than ½cm thickness. Trim to size and wrap the cake, which is then ready to slice.
Your letters
“Do you have a recipe for olive oil pastry?” asks Davina O’Mara. “My grandmother was from Crete and talked of the spinach pies of her upbringing. The pastry would be made with olive oil pastry, and I’d like to recreate one.” The most authentic recipe, from the Greek Academy of Taste, uses self-raising flour, because pastry made with oil can turn out rather “biscuity”.
Combine 125ml/4fl oz extra virgin olive oil with 125ml/4fl oz water, the grated rind and juice of 1 lemon, ½ tsp salt and 450g/15oz self-raising flour. Mix to a firm paste; wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes before using.
More classic cake recipes
Mary Berry's Victoria sandwich recipe
Mary Berry's chocolate and vanilla marble loaf recipe
Swiss roll recipe
