Cake of the Week: Battenburg


When Mike was working full-time at a miserable, hazardous job, I thought it would be a good idea to celebrate every Friday by buying or making a cake.  So far, I've made chocolate cakes, carrot cakes, and miscellaneous cakes.  By the time we went into unemployment a few months ago, I had become quite attached to the idea of the Friday Cake.

Last week, I decided that it would be fun to try to make a Battenburg Cake.  I'd spotted one at a friend's house, and thought it was interesting. After all, we don't have Battenburg cakes in America. 

A week later, and on Saturday, I've finally gotten around to it.  The process was messy.  I used this recipe except that I bought the marzipan rather than make it from scratch.  The batter was gloppy and had to be thinned with lots of milk, and I didn't get it quite even in the pan. The cake came out all lumped up in the middle and didn't look like it would make two neat checkerboard cakes in a million years.  

Well, a full jar of apricot jam later, this was the result:  

While far from perfect, it's nowhere near as hideous as I thought it would look halfway through the process.  I might even make it again -- it tastes better than it looks.

Comments

Anonymous said…
still looks quite delicious!
May 16, 2009 at 9:04 PM
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