Battenberg Cake

Instructions

1- Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line the base and sides of a 20cm square tin with baking parchment (the easiest way is to cross 2 x 20cm-long strips over the base).

2- To make the almond sponge, put the butter, sugar, flour, ground almonds, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and almond extract in a large bowl.

3- Beat with an electric whisk until the mix comes together smoothly.

4- Scrape into the tin, spreading to the corners, and bake for 25-30 mins – when you poke in a skewer, it should come out clean.

5- Cool in the tin for 10 mins, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling while you make the second sponge.

6- For the pink sponge, line the tin as above.

7- Mix all the ingredients together as above, but don’t add the almond extract.

8- Fold in some pink food colouring.

9- Then scrape it all into the tin and bake as before.

10- Cool.

11- To assemble, heat the jam in a small pan until runny, then sieve.

12- Barely trim two opposite edges from the almond sponge, then well trim a third edge.

13- Roughly measure the height of the sponge, then cutting from the well-trimmed edge, use a ruler to help you cut 4 slices each the same width as the sponge height.

14- Discard or nibble leftover sponge.

15- Repeat with pink cake.

16- Take 2 x almond slices and 2 x pink slices and trim so they are all the same length.

17- Roll out one marzipan block on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar to just over 20cm wide, then keep rolling lengthways until the marzipan is roughly 0.

18- 5cm thick.

19- Brush with apricot jam, then lay a pink and an almond slice side by side at one end of the marzipan, brushing jam in between to stick sponges, and leaving 4cm clear marzipan at the end.

20- Brush more jam on top of the sponges, then sandwich remaining 2 slices on top, alternating colours to give a checkerboard effect.

21- Trim the marzipan to the length of the cakes.

22- Carefully lift up the marzipan and smooth over the cake with your hands, but leave a small marzipan fold along the bottom edge before you stick it to the first side.

23- Trim opposite side to match size of fold, then crimp edges using fingers and thumb (or, more simply, press with prongs of fork).

24- If you like, mark the 10 slices using the prongs of a fork.

25- Assemble second Battenberg and keep in an airtight box or well wrapped in cling film for up to 3 days.

26- Can be frozen for up to a month.