Bank Holiday Battenberg

On the Monday of the Queen's Jubilee Bank Holiday I decided to make a suitably Jubilee themed cake whose name is of course the German translation of Mountbatten; the surname of the always politically correct Duke of Edinburgh.

The music on the playlist for the weekend's Bank Holiday revelry included the Smiths' 1986 masterpiece the Queen is Dead and God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols (good for comedy value). However the soundtrack for the cooking a preparation of the Battenberg itself was Shaun Ryder's obscure 2003 solo effort Amateur Night in the Big Top which sounded like a slightly more blue version of a chill out dance compilation album. It also displayed a refreshingly DIY approach to music making that caused me to think that if myself and a few of my mates got our hands on some beers and a copy of DJ Hero we could probably make as good an album.

I first measured into a bowl fifty grams of margarine and fifty grams of caster sugar. I stirred them together with a wooden spoon until the sugar had disappeared into the margarine. I then poured the contents of an egg into the bowl and added fifty grams of self-raising flour. Next it was time to try and use my limited upper body strength to bind these ingredients together. I stirred them thoroughly by pushing the wooden spoon deep into the mixture and moving it rapidly in a clockwise direction over and over again until the ingredients were properly blended.

I prepared a 25cm long loaf tin that was around 10cm and 5cm wide. I greased it with margarine and sprinkled flour in the bottom of it. I then poured the mixture into it and spread it evenly over the bottom of the tin.Next I covered the mixture with grease proof paper and left the tin to one side.

It was now time to make the other part of the mixture. In order to do this I simply repeated the process outlined above with the same amount of ingredients apart from that I added a quarter of a teaspoon of red food colouring. I then poured this mixture onto the top of the grease proof paper and spread it out evenly.

I cooked the mixture in a fanned oven at 170 degrees (180 for non-fanned ovens) for thirty minutes, then waited for the ingredients to cool and turned the two pieces of sponge out onto a wire rack. I was left with a yellow piece of sponge and a pink piece of sponge. I then cut the two pieces length ways down the middle and left them to cool.

In the meantime I made almond icing. I decided not to play safe and use ready made icing and instead made it from scratch. I took fifty grams of ground almonds, seventy five grams of icing sugar, seventy five grams of caster sugar, a quarter of a teaspoon of almond essence and one beaten egg. I then stirred the ingredients together thoroughly in a bowl until they formed a sticky paste.

I then turned my attention to the sponge and stuck the pieces together so the pink and yellow parts were at diagonals to each other; which made the end of the cake look like a psychedelic chess board. In order to help the sponge stick together I used mango and lime curd which I spread along the sides of the four pieces of sponge.

There are better looking cakes available for sure but few that are tastier.

After this I coated the pieces of sponge with the almond paste and left the newly constructed Battenburg to set.

So what were the results? Well this cake was very much one where taste outshone aesthetics. The sponge had come out a little wonky in the tin and the ends of it were more of a golden colour then a vivid contrast between yellow and pink. Also the recipe for the paste was perhaps a touch runnier than was ideal. However when the cake was cut into the contrast between the pink and yellow became apparent and the mango and lemon curd complimented the extreme sweetness of the almond paste. It may not have looked perfect but with taste of the quality described I wasn't too bothered- happy Jubilee Bank Holiday.

Like a psychedelic chess board- a cross section of the cake.