Friday, November 01, 2013

Halloween Inspired Chocolate Orange Batternberg

This week's #britishbloggerselection theme is Halloween so, here is a little throwback to Halloween 2010 at my friend, Rosie's birthday party! To this day, I still don't know what I was dressed up as...


 I didn't really do much this year, besides dressing Badger up, but I did make this cake!


A few weeks ago I made the most delicious batternberg using Rachel Allen's recipe. Her recipe is for one big cake but I made mine into mini ones, similar to the Mr Kipling cakes. 

A few days later I was in Costa Coffee and noticed their cake selection had a new addition - a chocolate orange batternberg. It was so yummy but I couldn't find a similar one in any supermarket. 

After a few weeks of practising, I came up with my own recipe. The cake is perfectly moist the orange is so fragrant! It's also a lot easier to make than you might think.

A few notes for this recipe: I added ground almonds to my cake but you can leave this out and make up the difference with more flour. This will make 2/3 big cakes depending on the size of your tray or 10/12 mini ones.

Also, you might be wondering - where is the Halloween inspiration in this cake? Well, it's orange...

Servings: 2/3 big cakes (8 slices each) or 10/12 mini cakes

Ingredients: 
250g unsalted butter
250g caster sugar
6 eggs
250g self-raising flour
90g almonds
4tbsp cocoa powder
Zest of one orange
Juice of half an orange
1 tsp orange food colouring
50g chocolate (I used chunks and melt just before step 3!)
3tbsp apricot jam (warm this up just before step 6!)
500g marzipan

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180°c and line two cake tins with greaseproof paper.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy ( I used my new mixer!) Slowly add the eggs and continue beating until smooth (it won't go completely smooth but try as hard as you can!)
3. Divide the batter into two bowls. For the chocolate layers, add 110g flour (sifted), 50g almonds, the melted chocolate and the cocoa powder and mix well. For the orange layer add the remaining flour (140g) and almonds (50g), the food colouring and the orange zest and juice. Mix well until completely combined and then pour each batter into a cake tin. Bake for 25 mins until spongy to touch.
4. Once removed from the oven, leave to stand for 15 minutes before you transfer them to a wire rack. Leave until cold and then transfer to the fridge for an hour or two to firm up.
5. When you cakes are nice and cold, it's time to get trimming. Using a bread knife, level your cakes on the top and sides until they're all even. 
6. Coat one layer of sponge in jam and sit the other layer on top. Then cut the cake into three rectangles for large cakes or 10/12 for mini ones.
7. Then take your rectangles and slices lengthways through the brown and then orange (or the other way round!) Brush with jam and lay the colours in the opposite direction to get the batternberg pattern. Repeat for all other layers of sponge.
8. Roll out your marzipan divide into three or 10/12 pieces to fit around the cakes (dust with icing sugar if it's really sticky!) Spread each piece of marzipan with a little jam and roll around the cake. Press firmly, trim away the excess and dust with more icing sugar. Voila!


Such a simple cake to make and it's so tasty! I'm sure there are thousands of other combinations - if you have any ideas, leave them in the comments!

Also, if you make this cake, let me know what you think!

x

4 comments:

  1. Oooo you're making me hungry already! Says a lot about me haha :) I love batternburg but i'm never allowed to make it as no one in my house likes it. damn. :((

    Sharlotte

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  2. that cake looks SO GOOD omg

    http://www.britishmermaid.blogspot.co.uk

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  3. the cake looks so yummy! x

    http://beckysbeautyfix.blogspot.co.uk/

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