Blueberry & Vanilla Battenberg

A Battenberg with a subtle nod to the Jubilee – Battenberg goes red, white and blue!

Ingredients:

200g butter, softened

200g caster sugar

4 eggs

200g self-raising flour

90g blueberries

1 tsp vanilla bean paste or the seeds scraped from one vanilla bean pod.

1 x pkt white marzipan

1/3rd of a jar of strawberry conserve or jam.

Prepare an 8″ square tin by lining the sides and the base. In the piece of baking paper for the base fold a pleat which will divide the cake in half.

Pink tin again – makes me smile!

Preheat the oven to 160c (fan)/180c/Gas Mark 4.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time along with a spoonful of the flour to prevent the mixture from curdling.

Once all the eggs are in sift in the remaining flour and fold until the mixture is even.

Split the cake mix between two bowls. To one half add the vanilla bean paste or the seeds scraped from one vanilla pod and mix well.

Take the blueberries and lightly blitz using a stick blender or mash with a fork.

Do not wear your new white jumper, blueberry juice is a swine to get out (drat!)

Add the crushed blueberries to the other bowl of cake mix and stir through evenly.

Add each cake mix to it’s own little compartment in the tin and level roughly with the back of a spoon.

Bake in the oven for 35 minutes until lightly golden brown and cooked through.

Sponge at white jumper madly….

Once baked transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Trim the crusts off each cake and level the top.

Cut each type of cake into two even pieces.

Now it’s assembly time.

Work on a chopping board or something similar. Position one log and coat the top and two side with jam, don’t worry about the base for now.

Add in the next piece of cake and again coat the top and the sides.

Add in the next piece on top, making sure the different cake flavours sit diagonally. Jam….you get the gist. It’s like building a wall.

Once assembled make sure the top and sides are coated with the jam, again leaving the base for now.

Set the cake to one side and lightly dust the worksurface with icing sugar.

Knead the marzipan until it’s soft and pliable enough to work with and roll out into a large rectangle, approx 4mm deep.

Trim the rectangle to just slightly larger to the depth and your cake and slightly wider than the measurement around the entire cake (approx 20cm x 30cm). Check your marzipan sheet isn’t stuck to the worksurface before going any further!

Lay the sheet of marzipan onto the cake centrally.

Now carefully flip the Battenberg over onto the worksurface so that the base is now in the air.

Coat the base with a layer of jam and finish wrapping the marzipan around the sides and the top.

Trim off any excess where the marzipan meets.

Carefully turn the Battenberg over so that the seal is now underneath.

Smooth and straighten the marzipan sides.

To crimp the top use your fingertips working along each side. You can see how in this photo here – either use the end of a piece of cutlery or just your finger in place of the spoon, pushing the marzipan into your thumb and forefinger. If in doubt practice on a piece of excess marzipan first!