Battenberg Cake — the pink-and-yellow chequerboard in marzipan

i. Origin & history

Battenberg cake originated in Britain in the late nineteenth century. The story attached to it — repeated so often that it is now part of the cake's identity — is that it was created to celebrate the marriage in April 1884 of Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, to Prince Louis of Battenberg, a German-born officer in the Royal Navy. The four squares are said to represent the four Battenberg brothers. Who baked the first one, if it was made for the wedding at all, is not recorded.

Food historians point out that the evidence for the wedding story is thin. Recipes for chequered cakes under the Battenberg name begin to appear in British bakers' manuals in the 1890s, roughly a decade later, and some of the earliest describe nine squares rather than four. Similar chequered cakes were also sold as 'domino cake' or 'church window cake'. The likeliest story is that a fashionable royal name was attached to a showy bakery cake in the 1880s or 1890s, a common practice at the time.

The Battenberg name itself has a well-known postscript. In 1917, during the First World War, anti-German feeling led the British royal family to drop their German titles, and Prince Louis's family anglicised Battenberg to Mountbatten. The cake, however, kept its original name — and is occasionally spelled 'Battenburg' in shops and recipes, which is a common misspelling rather than a separate cake.

Battenberg became a staple of British tea tables and, especially, of the mass-produced cake aisle in the twentieth century, where its bright pink and yellow squares and thick marzipan coat made it instantly recognisable. Home bakers often regard it as a test of neatness, since the joy of the cake is entirely in the precision of the cross-section.

ii. How to get a clean chequerboard

Battenberg is a cake about geometry. The two sponges are baked side by side in one square tin divided down the middle by a folded strip of baking paper or foil, so they come out the same height and texture. They are then trimmed of their crusts and domes and cut into four identical long bars. If the bars are not the same width and height, the squares will not line up and the pattern will look lopsided.

The sponge needs to be firm and fine-crumbed, which is why ground almonds are added to an ordinary creamed Victoria sponge. Almonds give a closer, moister crumb that cuts cleanly without crumbling and complements the marzipan. A light, airy sponge would compress under the marzipan and tear when trimmed.

Cooling matters. The cakes should be completely cold — ideally chilled for 30 minutes — before trimming, because warm sponge squashes under the knife. Use a long serrated knife and a ruler; professionals measure each bar. A depth of about 2.5 cm per bar gives a cake roughly 5 cm square in section.

Warm, sieved apricot jam is the glue. Apricot is used because it is sharp, pale and clear, so it neither overpowers the almond flavour nor shows as a coloured line between the squares. A thin layer is enough; too much makes the bars slide. The marzipan is then rolled into a rectangle wide enough to wrap the whole cake, and the join is set on the underside.

iii. Ingredients

Makes 10 servings · scroll the side panel to adjust

• 175 g unsalted butter, softened
• 175 g caster sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 125 g self-raising flour
• 50 g ground almonds
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp milk
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp almond extract
• ¼ tsp pink or red gel food colouring
• ¼ tsp yellow gel food colouring (optional)
• 150 g apricot jam, warmed and sieved
• 400 g marzipan, natural or golden
• 2 tbsp icing sugar, for rolling

Use gel food colouring, which gives strong colour without thinning the batter; liquid colouring needs much more and can affect the texture. The ground almonds make the crumb firm, moist and easy to cut. Bought marzipan is standard and saves time; the natural white kind looks best, though golden marzipan is traditional in some bakeries. A homemade version is easy too — see the marzipan recipe. If you are not fond of marzipan, a thin layer of fondant works, but it is no longer quite a Battenberg.

iv. Method

1. Heat the oven to 180 °C (160 °C fan, 350 °F). Butter a 20 cm square tin. Cut a sheet of baking paper larger than the tin, make a 5 cm pleat down the middle and press it in so the pleat stands up as a divider; or use a folded strip of foil.
2. Beat the butter and sugar for 4–5 minutes until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a spoon of the flour with the last if it starts to curdle.
3. Fold in the flour, ground almonds and baking powder, then the milk, vanilla and almond extract, to a smooth batter that drops off the spoon.
4. Weigh the batter and divide it exactly in half. Colour one half pink and the other pale yellow (or leave it plain). Spread each half evenly into one side of the tin.
5. Bake for 25–30 minutes, until risen, springy and a skewer comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then on a rack until completely cold; chill for 30 minutes for neater cutting.
6. Trim the crusts and domes off both cakes so they are the same height. Cut each lengthwise into two equal bars about 2.5 cm wide, so you have two pink and two yellow bars of identical size. Trim the ends square.
7. Brush the long sides with warm jam and stick the bars together in a chequerboard: pink next to yellow, with yellow on pink above. Press gently together.
8. Dust the work surface with icing sugar and roll the marzipan into a rectangle about 3 mm thick, as long as the cake and wide enough to wrap round it. Brush the outside of the cake with jam, place it at one edge of the marzipan and roll it up, sealing the join underneath. Trim the ends, crimp the top edges with your fingers if you like, and score the top in a diamond pattern with a knife.

v. Tips & common mistakes

• Weigh the batter halves. Judging by eye almost always gives one side taller than the other and uneven squares.
• Trim everything cold. Warm sponge squashes and tears. Chilling the cakes makes them easy to cut precisely.
• Measure the bars with a ruler. This is the single most effective way to get a sharp chequerboard. Two to three millimetres' difference shows.
• Use a thin layer of sieved jam. Lumpy or excessive jam makes the bars slip and leaves visible lines.
• Roll the marzipan evenly. Use guide sticks or measure; uneven marzipan gives a lumpy outside and patchy thickness when sliced.
• Keep the colour subtle. Traditional Battenberg is a soft pink; very strong colour can taste bitter and look garish.

vi. Variations

Chocolate Battenberg pairs a cocoa sponge with a plain one; coffee and walnut, lemon and raspberry versions are common too. Nine-square Battenberg, made with three colours or alternating two, echoes the earliest printed recipes. Modern bakers use matcha green, orange or even rainbow colours.

Marzipan-wrapped cakes are a European tradition: compare Sweden's green prinsesstarta, Austria's pink-iced punschkrapfen and Germany's marzipan confections. For other British almond bakes see Bakewell tart, and for a different layered cake, the marble cake.

vii. Serving & storage

Battenberg is a tea-time cake, served in slices about 1.5 cm thick with a pot of tea. It needs no accompaniment, though some people like it with a little whipped cream. Slice with a sharp serrated knife for clean squares.

Wrapped in baking paper and foil, or in an airtight tin, it keeps for 5 days at room temperature; the marzipan coat stops the sponge from drying out. Do not refrigerate, since the sponge firms and the marzipan sweats. The wrapped cake can be frozen for up to 2 months; thaw it in its wrapping at room temperature.

ix. More from British & Irish

• Bakewell Tart — almond and jam tart
• Marzipan — almond paste
• Eccles Cake — flaky currant pastry
• Shortbread — Scottish butter biscuit
• Prinsesstarta — Swedish princess cake
• Punschkrapfen — pink Viennese petit fours