battenberg cake

Daring Bakers' reveal day kind of snuck up on me. Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.

I made this early in the month, and since I wasn't super pleased with the results, I had plans to adapt it to better suit our taste, but I just didn't get around to it.

So, for my Daring Bakers' submission, I made a pink and yellow Batterberg Cake. The yellow cake was flavored with lemon extract, and the pink, with framboise liquor and raspberry flavoring. I thought the cake was dry and the flavor pretty artificial, but that's to be expected, since I used artificial extracts to flavor it! As for the texture, when our host said we could probably make this cake without a stand mixer, for some reason I thought I could make it all with a bowl and a wooden spoon, and quickly discovered I have no clue how to make cake without a mixer... pretty sad!

I covered the cake with white fondant, on a super hot and humid day, so it turned out... the way it did! Not awesome.

Although my cake didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to, I had a fun time making and assembling it, and I'm sure I'll use the technique again in the future. I also enjoyed reading about the adventures my fellow Daring Bakers had with chocolate plastic in the private forums! I'll have to try my hand at that some day too!

Thanks for the challenge Mandy!

Want to try making your own? Click here for the challenge and the recipes provided!