Battenberg cake

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the type of cake. For emergency vehicle markings, see Battenburg markings.

Battenberg Cake

Battenberg cake (or window cake) is a light sponge cake which, when cut in cross section, displays a distinctive two-by-two check pattern alternately coloured pink and yellow. The cake is covered in marzipan and, when sliced, the characteristic checks are exposed to view. These coloured sections are made by dying half of the cake mixture pink, and half yellow, then cutting each resultant sponge into two long, uniform cuboids, and joining them together with apricot jam, to form one cake.^[1]

The origin of the name is not clear, but one theory claims that the cake was created in honour of the marriage in 1884 of Queen Victoria's granddaughter to Prince Louis of Battenberg.^[2]

On 2008-04-10 the Food Standards Agency asked for a voluntary ban on artificial food colourings and suggested that the ban would be practical by the end of 2009. This would mean that certain foods such as mushy peas, battenberg cakes, Turkish Delight and tinned strawberries might disappear temporarily or permanently.^[3]