Sunday 17 August 2014

Beautiful Battenburg

I made battenburg cake! Warning: there may be a lot of cake based posts for a bit because a) I like cake b) I am glued to British Bake Off and c) it helps me to relax in the face of the upcoming referendum horror (which I actually had a nightmare about last night, not good.)

Anyway, battenburg cake is an almond flavour cake with a constructional interest. In cross-section you can see the basic form of alternating strips of pink and yellow cake, glued together with apricot jam and clad in marzipan. It was delicious and sadly devoured almost in its entirety by Alistair's work colleagues.

For historians: here is a excerpt from Wikipedia on the origins of the cake: 'The origin of the cake is unknown, with early recipes also using the alternative names "Domino Cake" (recipe by Agnes Berthe Marshall, 1898), "Neapolitan Roll" (recipe by Robert Wells, 1898),or "Church Window Cake." The link to the town of Battenburg in central Germany (the seat of the aristocratic family known in Britain as Mountbatten), is purported to have come from the marriage in 1884 of Prince Louis of Battenburg to Princess Victoria, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.' I thought that was quite interesting.

1 comment:

Leen said...

Hooray you made it!!