Cherry & White Chocolate Battenberg
Take the age old Battenberg cake and bring it up to the modern day with this cherry and white chocolate Battenberg recipe! Loaded with kirsch-soaked cherries, white chocolate chunks, and all sandwiched together with cherry jam and marzipan. Fun to make, and even more fun to eat!
Prep Time: 2 hours
Cook Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: Easy
Serves: 1 large batterberg
Ingredients
Caster Sugar - 400g
Natural Yogurt - 200g
Eggs - 6 Medium
Olive Oil - 300g
Plain Flour - 440g
Baking Powder - 2 tsp
Baking Soda - 0.5 tsp
Salt - 0.5 tsp
White Cooking Chocolate - 150g
Cherries (can be jarred, soaked in juice or kirsch) - 150g
Cherry Jam - around 0.3 jar
Marzipan - 500g
Icing sugar - to dust
Optional: Cherries to serve
Method
Cherry Battenberg Step One - Prep the Tin
Preheat the oven to 160°C (320°F) for a fan oven.
This recipe’s quantities work for a 16cm by 24cm (6 inch by 9 inch) high-sided tin. For this you could used a specialised cake tin (pictured), a square or rectangular roasting tin, or couple of loaf tins. Don’t worry if you can’t find a tin 24 cm long, you’ll just end up with extra cake mix.
If using one in, cover the tin in foil, and create a long barrier in the middle using the foil (so that you can bake two different cake batters in there at the same tin). If you’re using 2 bread tins, then you don’t need to make the divide.
Grease the tins to stop the batter sticking.
Cherry Battenberg Step Two - WHITE CHOCOLATE CAKE MIX
In a bowl add half the dry cake ingredients: 220g of flour, 1 tsp of baking powder, 0.25 tsp baking soda, and 0.25 tsp of salt. Stir together.
In a separate bowl lightly whisk together 150g of the yogurt, 200g of the sugar, 3 eggs and 150g of olive oil.
Cherry Battenberg Step Three - White CHocolate
Fold the yogurt-sugar mix into the flour mix.
Blend or finely chop the white chocolate and fold into the cake mix.
Place into a container and set aside whilst you make the other cake batter.
Cherry Battenberg Step Four - Cherry Cake MIx
Clean the bowls, and repeat a very similar process for the cherry cake.
In a blender, blend 75g of the juice from the cherries and 75g of cherries (if using fresh cherries without juice, then de-stone them and blend 150g of the cherries).
In a bowl add the other half of the dry cake ingredients, as in Step Two: 220g of flour, 1 tsp of baking powder, 0.25 tsp baking soda, and 0.25 tsp of salt. Stir together.
In a separate bowl lightly whisk together the cherry mix, 50g of the yogurt, 200g of the sugar, 3 eggs and 150g of olive oil.
Fold the wet mix into the dry mix.
Pour both this and the white chocolate mixes into separate sides of the tray and bake for around 1 hour (until a knife / skewer comes out clean).
Cherry Battenberg Step Five - Made to Measure
When the cakes are cooked through, take out of the oven and cool.
Now it’s time to assess the size you’ll be cutting to. When it’s all put together, the short sides of the cake will be squares made of four identically-sized pieces, two of cherry cake and two of white chocolate cake. The cake will be the length of the tin you made it in.
Using a ruler, work out the largest identically-sized ‘long squares’ you can cut, two from the cherry and two from the white chocolate cakes. For mine I could get two 4cm x 4cm x 23cm slices from each cake.
Using a sharp knife, trim the cakes to produce two long squares of the right size from each cake. Discard the excess.
Cherry Battenberg Step Six - Cherry Glue
Cover one of the edges of a cherry cake slice with cherry jam and stick it to a white chocolate slice. Repeat with the other slices, sticking them together in an alternating Battenberg pattern, using cherry jam on each internal join to glue it all together.
Cherry Battenberg Step Seven - MARZIPAN
On a surface dusted with icing sugar, roll the marzipan out to the length of the Battenberg and to enough width so that it’ll roll over the entire Battenberg and overlap itself on one side i.e. 5x the width of the Battenberg.
Cover the marzipan in more cherry jam (warm slightly in the microwave if it needs help sticking) and trim the bottom so that it’s straight.
Place the cake onto the bottom of the marzipan and roll until it’s covered in marzipan, and the marzipan overlaps itself on one side. This overlap will keep the marzipan coating strong enough to hold the cake together without coming apart. The double-coated side will be the bottom of the cake.
Trim off any excess marzipan and, if needed, smooth down any loose edges using a finger dipped in warm water.
Cherry Battenberg Step Eight - Cherry Battenberg
Trim a little piece off the ends of the Batternberg to neaten the marzipan.
And that’s it, hope you enjoy!