It’s that time of the month again...no, nothing to with the human body...just the Daring Bakers!
Long, long ago, I had read about this historical cake...it was made to celebrate the wedding of queen Victoria’s daughter(more historical details here.)
This had been on my "To Do" list for the longest time ,eight years.
Do"ing" has been so time consuming...imagine, this cake took me eight years.
Agendas!
Also on my agenda are macaroons!
Anyway the daunting factor for me is not the cake or the baking ...it’s the marzipan!
Neither I nor sweet child is too fond of marzipan...
Whatever could go wrong this time went!
And as they say, disasters do strike in three's...only this time they did in FOURS!
Maybe Five!
Limits and Murphy’s Law must have originated out of situations like this!
The fourth tile I am trying to post this recipe…each time blogger has been so Roman!
Et tu Blogger???
The curse of the disasters has struck me in the fives…
The first time was an oversight on my part. Totally forgot the dates and suddenly remembered that the 27th looms so close.
The second, 26th was a Tuesday. Now technically my family and I do not eat eggs on a Tuesday, but I thought that the gods would be kind.
But noooooo(you should hear the accentuated no!),the minute I popped the cake pans into the oven, the electricity did a u turn and went back home. So after a delay of about 20 minutes the cakes were not as soft as I wanted them to be.
Then as I posted…blogger played hokey!
Again and Again…
This is my fifth try….
Finally!
Blog-checking lines:
Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.
Five has to be lucky.
All the drama does not take from the fact that the cake is pretty , and surprisingly light and tasty.
I was so struck by the colors that I found here. , only could not recreate the purple…it is more like a faux purple…magenta really. And I used fondant.Spectacular dessert, more like a tea time cake, but whatever…it is still a nice way to eat cake…
For the
Battenberg/Battenburg Cake Daring Bakers
Challenge June 2012…
You need
3 eggs
2 cups plain flour
1 cup castor sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup butter/ neutral vegetable oil
1 tsp almond essence
1 tsp baking powder
3 -4 tbsp cold milk
A few drops food color
200 gms apricot jam(I used strawberry)
1 cup Buttercream frosting
1 cup marzipan/fondant
Silver dragees to stud…
Fairly standard here, but I would recommend starting with a prayer…for the electricity.
Oven on at 180C/350F .
Start with the eggs and t he sugar. If you want to use butter, whip the butter, then add the sugar and then the eggs one at a time.
Whip the egg and sugar mix really well.
Show your ambidexterity ,sift the flour and the baking powder with the salt.
Now pour the oil into the egg mix.
Greased and floured loaf tins, you can separate the two colors with non stick paper, only easy is always good.
Fold the flour in. the batter was a little dry, so I added the milk .
One half , or a nicer way to say it, the better half of the batter into another bowl. Food color to tint, a little darker that you want it.
Lovely combo- magenta and orange, orange and blue would have rocked too!
See my fascination with color, while the cakes bake…. I painted panel blue…this is the first coat!
I tried to heat and ,melt the jam, believe me- nothing works like violence! A fact corroborated by sweet child- his current obsession being God of War! A whip with a whisk was easier to make the jam smoooooooth!
Once the cakes were cooked(in 22 minutes) and cooled(the entire afternoon) I trimmed the cakes to fit one on top of the other.
Four long slices, we need a checkerboard.
Joined at the hip with the melted jam, brushed liberally.
Orange and purple and purple and orange!. Wow!
The butter cream, I used half butter cream and half lemon curd(recipe follows…the frosting for the lemon chiffon cake). Slathered on three sides.
Fondant rolled out thin. Bigger than what was needed…safe!
Frosted side down, and then the last side covered and fondant wrapped.
Fondant is HARD to work with in this humid sultry weather that is now Ranchi…the monsoons came and just disappeared…..leaving behind the frogs croaking for more.
I can tell you, almost every day I catch one…they jump into my house from the garden…and sweet dog barks his head off…he tried to catch one once….it almost whacked his nose. So I run after them with inverted zip pouches on my hands like a mitt…catch it and turn the zip pouch over and seal it.
I also give instructions on frog catching!
Back to the Battenberg/Battenburg.
Chilled , I made criss cross patterns with the back of a knife and sweet child studded the silver dragees.
Royal…
Sliced ..
The sponge and the lemon curd butter cream and the fondant…awesome!
So worth locking horns with Mr Murphy for this.
So worth locking horns with Mr Murphy for this.
Thank you daring bakers for a lesson in history…can't wait to see what comes up next month! I will try the blue and orange Battenburg too…
Try this…fun cake. Colors and history…almost like watching television.
So what are you baking today????
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