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Happy Monday blog readers! Late last year, I chronicled my attempt to make a Battenberg cake – which I did – but the beastliest, hugest battenberg cake that’s probably ever existed!

Lately I decided to make a second attempt – this time at mini Battenberg cakes! Look how cute they are! I made little cakes similar to the Mr Kipling ones, and then cut them into little cake canapes! How cute are they! Perfect for parties or afternoon tea’s.

I also made these little British cakes to celebrate British grown baking supplies. Did you know that Silver Spoon is the only caster sugar grown in the UK? You can tell by the little red and blue tractor on the packaging, and I always make sure I pick it up so I am supporting British farmers.

Here’s how to make them -

  • 150g caster sugar
  • 150g very soft unsalted butter
  • 3 free range/happy eggs
  • 150g self-raising flour
  • 30ml milk
  • pink and yellow food colouring (I use Sugarflair)
  • 50g apricot jam
  • 200g ready to roll marzipan

First, preheat your oven to 200C/400F/gas6 and mix your soft butter and sugar until its combined and light and fluffy. My new Breville mixer makes it SO easy – okay so its not a Kitchenaid, but one day!

Mix and then add your eggs, self-raising flour and milk until your batter is smooth and delicious. Next, divide the cake batter, putting half into a second bowl so that you can add a few drops of pink to one batch, and yellow to the other, until you achieve soft pastel colours. Go easy on the gel colours, adding a little at a time until you get a colour you’re happy with.

Put your cake batter into a greased tin and level the top. You can use separate tins, or just create a tin foil divider as I’ve done above. Bake for 20-25 minutes, keeping a close eye on the cakes so that they don’t get too browned on the top.

Once they’re cooked, cool completely and get your apricot jam and marzipan ready. Measure 50g of the jam into a microwave-proof bowl and warm until melty and soft, and get your work surface ready for rolling out the marzipan. It will need to be spotlessly clean as the marzipan will pick up any crumbs or dust, and you can use icing sugar to help the marzipan to not stick.

Cut your pink and yellow sponges into cake bars/sticks – they need to be pretty small to make your mini battenbergs. Next, sandwich four together, pink yellow, yellow pink, brushing them with apricot jam to help them stick, and then cover in rolled marzipan, using jam to seal the edges. Once I’d done one and worked out the correct size of marzipan to use, I unwrapped it and measured out more marzipan rectangles to the same dimensions.

Don’t panic if they don’t look awesome at this point, just trim the ends, cutting off excess marzipan and uneven cake edges until you have a nice looking battenberg (wink).

Cut up into little slices for even more dainy cake treats.

Enjoy!

x Kerry