1 - Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line the base and sides of a 20cm square tin with baking parchment (the easiest way is to cross 2 x 20cm-long strips over the base).
2 - To make the almond sponge, put the butter, sugar, flour, ground almonds, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and almond extract in a large bowl.
3 - Beat with an electric whisk until the mix comes together smoothly.
4 - Scrape into the tin, spreading to the corners, and bake for 25-30 mins – when you poke in a skewer, it should come out clean.
5 - Cool in the tin for 10 mins, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling while you make the second sponge.
Battenberg Cake | Taste Board
6 - For the pink sponge, line the tin as above.
7 - Mix all the ingredients together as above, but don’t add the almond extract.
8 - Fold in some pink food colouring.
9 - Then scrape it all into the tin and bake as before.
10 - Cool.
11 - To assemble, heat the jam in a small pan until runny, then sieve.
12 - Barely trim two opposite edges from the almond sponge, then well trim a third edge.
13 - Roughly measure the height of the sponge, then cutting from the well-trimmed edge, use a ruler to help you cut 4 slices each the same width as the sponge height.
14 - Discard or nibble leftover sponge.
15 - Repeat with pink cake.
16 - Take 2 x almond slices and 2 x pink slices and trim so they are all the same length.
17 - Roll out one marzipan block on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar to just over 20cm wide, then keep rolling lengthways until the marzipan is roughly 0.
18 - 5cm thick.
19 - Brush with apricot jam, then lay a pink and an almond slice side by side at one end of the marzipan, brushing jam in between to stick sponges, and leaving 4cm clear marzipan at the end.
20 - Brush more jam on top of the sponges, then sandwich remaining 2 slices on top, alternating colours to give a checkerboard effect.
21 - Trim the marzipan to the length of the cakes.
22 - Carefully lift up the marzipan and smooth over the cake with your hands, but leave a small marzipan fold along the bottom edge before you stick it to the first side.
23 - Trim opposite side to match size of fold, then crimp edges using fingers and thumb (or, more simply, press with prongs of fork).
24 - If you like, mark the 10 slices using the prongs of a fork.
25 - Assemble second Battenberg and keep in an airtight box or well wrapped in cling film for up to 3 days.
