While I was out doing a food shop earlier this week, I came across Golden Marzipan, and I knew I just had to create a Christmassy Battenberg. It was literally crying out at me to transform it so! In my mind, anything red and with chocolate screams Christmas so here's my Christmas version of a Battenberg - Red Velvet and Chocolate, with cream cheese frosting. You're welcome!
For this recipe, you'll need a Battenberg tin or you can make your own using baking paper. There are lots of YouTube video guides on how to do this. I use this Battenberg Tin (not an ad).
Pre-heat your oven to 170ºc Fan
Ingredients
For the cake batter
235g Self-Raising Flour
15g Cocoa Powder
230g Golden Caster Sugar
3/4 Tsp Salt
270g Unsalted Butter (soft)
4 Large Eggs
3 Tbsp Buttermilk (I substituted 3 Tbsp Whole Milk with the juice of 1/2 Lemon)
1 Tsp Red Velvet Emulsion (you can buy this in good baking shops or online: Red Velvet Emulsion)
1 Tsp Vanilla
3/4 Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda + 1.5 Tsp Cider Vinegar (Recommend only mixing together when you are ready to add to the cake batter)
For the frosting/cake wrapping
75g Unsalted Butter
120g Full Fat Cream Cheese
420g Icing Sugar
1/2 Packet Golden Marzipan
How I made my Battenberg
Pre-heat your oven to 170ºC. Grease and line a Battenberg tray, or make your own using baking paper. There are various online tutorials on how to do this.
Sift and mix together the flour, cocoa powder, caster sugar and salt into a bowl.
Pre-mix your eggs, then add these together with the butter to your flour mixture.
Mix together the buttermilk (or milk/lemon combination) and vanilla, and add to the flour mixture.
Mix together the Bicarb and vinegar, and with your whisk already on, add to the cake batter and mix thoroughly.
Spoon half of your batter into a second bowl, and add the red velvet emulsion to this batter.
Spoon your batter into your tin, filling 1/2-3/4 of the way full and alternating between the chocolate and the red velvet batter (not necessary, but it looks pretty!).
Bake for c.25 minutes
Once baked, leave to cool in the tin. I actually put my tin in the fridge for an hour so the sponges could firm up a little before the icing and decorating process.
To decorate
The beauty of a Battenberg is the checkerboard effect.
To make your cream cheese frosting, I first mix my butter until it's super soft and creamy, before delicately folding in the cream cheese. You don't want to overmix.
Then whisk in your icing sugar in two tranches. I sift mine in to ensure there are no lumps. No one wants lumpy frosting!
Once mixed to a smooth, creamy texture you're ready to ice your four sponges. Be generous with the frosting which 'glues' the four sponges together as you want this to show through as a nice white cross once finished.
Instead of icing the sides of the sponges, I then rolled out my marzipan to a rectangular shape, long enough and wide enough to cover my sponges. I then added frosting to the marzipan and then 'folded' my sponges onto the marzipan, ensuring all four long sides are covered (you leave the two ends exposed) and the join is at the bottom of the cake.
I used a flat bladed knife to ensure the marzipan had no loose areas and nuzzled up to the sponges lovingly! This also ensures a neat end product
I trimmed both edges to get a neat line on both ends.
I scored the top and sides to create texture and dusted with icing sugar. You can go further and add various Christmas decoration, sprinkles etc - go mad, I say!
A thick slice of Red Velvet and Chocolate Battenberg goes really well with a nice cup of tea.
Yorumlar