Vegan Battenberg Cake

How tricky is it to make a vegan battenberg cake

Making a good vegan battenberg cake is a technical challenge & maybe not for the fainthearted. However with a bit of patience, a methodical approach, and the right equipment it isn’t that difficult. The main thing is having a special battenberg cake tin. Sure you can do it in a tray and cut it up, but the results are often a bit wonky! If you plan to make it more than once, I suggest getting the correct cake tin for it. It means they always come out the right shape, are even & fit together nicely.

Being methodical is what really counts in the end

Making the cake mix isn’t too bad, just a question of weighing the ingredients acurately. Do make sure you pour in the first half, then remember to colour the second half & then pour that. Once that’s done you can easily insert the dividers afterwards as shown in the pictures, which works well.

Putting it all together in the right order can be a little tricky

Assembing the different coloured cakes can be a little confusing. You want the similar colours diagonally opposite each other. I suggest warming the jam, and then blitzing it with a stick blender before applying. Painting it on liberally with a silicon pastry brush works well. Then you simply stick the cake blocks together with the jam.

Rolling the marzipan out thin enough takes persistence.

Rolling the marzipan out thin enough and large enough is a bit of a challenge. I did try making my own marzipan, but to be honest, it didn’t go that well. So I would recommend using a commercially produced marzipan. Make sure it’s rolled out large enough though: it will still be massively thicker than a stingy shop bought battenberg. Patting with the pallet knife to keep it reasonably oblong  & uniform in shape is a necessity.

Making if fit properly takes a bit of care & a ruler!

You’ll need a ruler or other measuring device to make sure it’s big enough all round with a bit of margin. Scoring it lightly where you want the folds to be helps the marzipan fit the cake corners snugly. A palette knife works quite well for this. I did buy a cake crimper for the final edge but it’s actually easier to just use your fingers. Afterwards you can trim it with a pair of scissors. Use a sharp serrated knife to cut slices your of your vegan battenberg cake neatly.

Battenberg Cake

This is a very tasty moist cake - that can be a challenge to assemble, but is a real crowd pleaser - but you need lots of apricot jam!

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Prep Time 25 minutes mins

Cook Time 50 minutes mins

Servings: 12

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Vegan, British

Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x?

Main cake ingredients

• 150 g Self Raising white flour & 150g self-raising wholemeal – was 320 in original
• 70 g Ground Almonds 80 original
• 150 g Caster Sugar was 240g in original – could maybe reduce even more to 180g?
• 1 tsp Baking Powder maybe omit completely for a less crumbly open texture - it makes it difficult to work at the end.
• 350 ml Soya Milk or Nut based alternative – 400ml originally
• 50 g aqua faba - very well whipped until 400ml volume optoinal - use 50g less milk if using this
• 135 ml Oil Rapeseed (was 160 in original) maybe try it at 130?
• 2 Teasps Vanilla Paste
• 2 teasps Almond Extract
• Vegan food colouring paste red and yellow - add plenty of red!

Cake assembly ingredients

• 450 g Marzipan pack – Sainsbury’s brand etc
• 150 g Fruit Jam Bonne Maman Apricot is best but could be another seedless jam
• Icing sugar to help roll out the marzipan
• Boiling water to help thin out the jam

Equipment

• battenberg cake tin with dividers
• electric whisk or similar

Method

 

1. Weigh out all the dry ingredients in a large sized bowl.
   
2. Mix well – best with the electric whisk on slow.
3. Set your oven to 170°C fan– sometimes best not to use the fan setting for cakes - was 180°C convection
4. Weigh out all the wet ingredients into a jug – zeroing after each addition, and whisk.
   
5. Grease and line your pan. Greased greaseproof paper on the bottom – you can cover the separators I guess to make it easier to get the cake oblongs out – I’m going to try that next time. Put just the middle separator in at first – not the other two.
6. When the oven is up to temperature – tip all the wet ingredients into the dry ones and whisk – a bit slow at first, but as quickly as you can ramp up to full speed and give it a good whisking – incorporating as much air as quickly as possible – a couple of minutes max though.
   
7. Divide the mixture in two. In one add enough food colouring (not cochineal/E120 as it's not vegan) to get a pink colour, and enough yellow in the other to get a nice yellow colour. Give each a quick mix starting with the yellow.
   
8. Fill one side with the yellow cake mixture approximately 3/4 full = 460g
   
9. Then pour the pink mixture in the other side the same - also 3/4 full = 460g. The tin with one separator and mixture in both sides should weigh 1134g
   
10. Carefully insert the other 2 separators so you have four long troughs each 3/4 full of batter.
    
11. Give it a little shake back and forth in the direction of the troughs – this is so there will be slightly less batter in the middle to give a more uniform and even rise.
12. Bake for 40 minutes minimum and check after 40 minutes with a cake tester to see how it’s doing – probably needs 45-50 mins as it needs to be fully cooked.
    
13. Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes – then cut the cake down to the top of the dividers so it’s completely flat. You can use this cake with some jam in between like a Victoria sponge. Then cut all the way round the outside edge to release the cake – use a plastic knife or spatula so as not to damage the cake tin.
    
14. Carefully remove the 4 cakes together from the tray.
    
15. Remove the greaseproof paper, and separate the 4 cake oblongs.
    
16. Mix a little water with the jam, heat a little in the microwave, and blend into a smooth slightly runny liquid with stick blender.
17. Lay the oblongs 2 pink & 2 yellow next to each other. Brush the top surface with the jam. Rotate 2 of the oblongs so they are on top – so 2 pinks on top and 2 yellows on bottom – split down the middle where they are cut, and lay them flat again, turning one pair round the other way – it should then be pink/yellow/pink/yellow. Paint with the jam again. Rotate one pair onto the other pair to create the traditional pattern of pink diagonally opposite pink and the same with the yellow. Pat/gently press the four oblongs together into a nice solid square shape.
    
18. Roll out the marzipan on a cool surface dusted with icing sugar. Use the tin as a measure – marzipan the same length as the oblongs, but twice the width of the tin, plus almost the width of one of oblongs – to give a joining flap. Best to roll it out bigger than you need and then cut the shape you want – otherwise a 450-475g pack is too thick – needs to be quite thin.
    
19. Paint the marzipan with the jam, but leave a strip 1/4 the width of a block at each short end.
20. Place block on jam – just where the jam starts. Press down gently to get it to mate with the jam. And with a palette knife, make a very slight dent where the first fold will be on the other side of the block from the flap.
21. Using the palette knife, lift the marzipan and cake and rotate through 90° being careful not to move it on the jam. Again press down gently and repeat the process.
22. On the last one you will need to bend the marzipan lip out of the way, so do it near the edge of the surface you are working on.
23. The best way I have found so far is to use a crimper, or a couple of straight edges to press the 2 flaps together so it sticks out at 45° to the 2 sides, and then either crimp by hand or with a couple of straight edges, and then trim quite close with a pair of scissors.
    

Notes

Final note – you can do it with a couple of loaf tins, but it involves a lot of fiddly difficult cutting – get the proper Battenberg cake tin with the dividers, and whilst it’s still a bit tricky – it’s a whole lot easier!

assemble the four blocks in the right colour order - you can paint the top with jam now if you like

roll the marzipan out until you have a good margin over the required 20cm by 35cm oblong. Patting back into an oblong shape every so often can help to avoid waste, but a standard block of marzipan which is 450g is more than enough for one battenberg cake.

Once you've got it noticeably bigger than you will require to cover the 4 sides of the cake with a little under 1cm extra at each end - you can then cut one of the short sides so that it's completely strait. Then taper the last centimeter of that, with a rolling pin or edge of a jar by rolling it along. Then paint on the jam so that it's a bit more than 8 centimetre wide band accross the short side with a space between the tapered edge - and the jam of roughly 2cm.

 Paint the jam wider than the block of four cakes - at least 8cm but leave that 2cm strip - that will be the join. place it 2cm from the edge on the begining of the jam with the pre jammed side facing the unjammed strip. Use the pallette knife to put a slight dink or crease line in the marzipan right next to the cake with the unjammed expanse to the right of it. Then paint 8/9cm more jam on the marzipan - also trim the rough edge there will be at both ends of the cake with a knife and remove - it's easier to do it as you go. You can roll the cake onto the newly jammed section, but it tends to bulge - so I find that it's best to slide your hand under the marzipan and offer it up to the side of the cake - that way you can get a more precise crease or bend in the marzipan. Once you got a nice sharp corner, you can smoothly roll the cake onto the newly jammed section and proceed with the third side in the same way as the second: spread jam, dink/crease, offer up the side, roll the cake over on to it. You should now have three sides covered. Measure the side to be covered allowing for the projecting 2 1/2 (after the tapering) and cut it so that it will just come to where the 2 1/2cm flap will be. then taper it so that it's 1/2cm longer than it was. Spread a very thin layer of jam on 1cm of this flap and bring it to cover the remaining side. This will all require quite a bit of jiggery pokery and fine judgement!

It is doable and with practice, you will refine it. I will add more notes or refine these as I gather better ways to describe or do it.

Tried this recipe?

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