Coffee and Walnut Battenberg Cake

I finally did it. I made a Mary Berry recipe. And a Mary Berry Battenberg cake at that. She would be so proud to know that I was this obsessed with her... Or creeped out.

I've been dying to make a Battenberg ever since I got a Battenberg cake tin for Christmas, which is a useful tray if you're a keen Battenberger, (yes, i just made that up).

Ingredients

100g unsalted butter, softened

100g caster sugar

2 eggs

100g self-raising flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

50g ground almonds

few drops vanilla extract

3 teaspoons milk

1 1/2 teaspoons coffee granules

25g walnuts, chopped

For the coffee butter icing:

100g icing sugar

40g unsalted butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon coffee granules

1 1/2 teaspoons milk

To finish:

225g white marzipan

icing sugar, for dusting

walnuts, to decorate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3. Put the soft butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and ground almonds into a large mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon for 2 to 3 minutes or until smooth, slightly lighter in colour and glossy looking.

2. Spoon sightly more than half the mixture into a separate bowl and add the vanilla and 1 1/2 teaspoons of the milk. Mix well, then set aside. Stir the coffee with the remaining milk until it has dissolved, then add this to the first bowl of mixture together with the chopped walnuts. Spoon the vanilla mixture into a half of the tin and the coffee-walnut mixture into the other half.

3. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the sponges are well risen and springy to the touch and have shrunk slightly from the sides of the tin. Take out of the oven and cool in the tin for a few minutes, then run a round-bladed knife around the inside of the tin, then turn them out onto a wire rack. Leave to cool completely.

4. Trim the crisp edges off the cooled sponges using a serrated knife. To make the butter icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl with the butter. Stir the coffee and milk together until the coffee has dissolved, then pour into the bowl. Beat everything together with a wooden spoon until soft and smooth.

5. Lay a vanilla sponge strip and a coffee-walnut strip side by side and use a little of the icing to stick them together. Spread a bit more icing on the top. Stick the remaining two strips on with icing, placing them so they will create a chequerboard effect. Spread a bit more icing over the top of the assembled chequerboard.

6. Roll out the marzipan on a clean worktop to make an oblong that is the length of the cake and sufficiently wide (pieces of string may help you). Lay the iced side of the cake on the marzipan oblong. Spread the rest over the remaining three sides of the cake.

7. Roll the cake over in the marzipan, pressing to cover it neatly. Turn the cake over so the join is underneath. Trim a slice from each end of the cake to neaten and show off the chequerboard effect. Smooth the marzipan over with your hands so their warmth will give it a smooth finish.

8. Decorate as desired. I crimped the edges by pinching the marzipan, then score the top of the cake with long diagonal lines, sifted some icing sugar over the cake and secured walnut halves with butter icing.

My sister liked it, so I think that has to count for something right? My mum just sat there licking the butter icing bowl while I slaved away in the kitchen cleaning up all my mess, that's role reversal for you.

This cake was absolutely delish, definitely one for afternoon tea (now I just need to find friends who are willing to be dragged to my various tea parties that I want to hold).