Bake Off Recipe: Paul Hollywood’s Mini Battenbergs

Great British Bake Off returned last week for its 15th edition, with a new line-up of bakers competing in the tent in the hopes of impressing Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith. As is tradition, each episode sees the contestants attempting a technical challenge, whereby they must make a specific bake with little guidance. 

For week one, the 2024 participants were tasked with creating an identical set of eight mini battenberg cakes. This marked the show’s first ever ‘Taste and Bake’ challenge, where the contestants were given a few minutes to taste a battenberg cake, determine the ingredients, and make their own. 

Keen to give it a go yourself? Don’t worry: Paul has now shared the mini battenbergs recipe, so yours won’t be a guessing game. Although it will require some baking expertise, with the difficulty level marked as ‘needs skill’. 

Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge No. 1: Mini Battenbergs

Ingredients:

For the sponges

• 175g salted butter, softened
• 175g caster sugar
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 3 eggs
• 175g self-raising flour
• Pink food colouring

For the apricot jam

• 100g apricots, stoned weight, roughly chopped
• 100g jam sugar
• For the buttercream
• 75g unsalted butter, softened
• 150g icing sugar, sifted

For the marzipan

• 300g ground almonds
• 150g icing sugar, sifted
• 150g caster sugar
• 4 tbsp pasteurised egg white
• ¼ tsp almond extract
• Yellow food colouring
• Granulated sugar, for rolling

Equipment:

• 30 x 17cm strip of 2-in-1 baking paper and foil
• 17cm square cake tin, lightly greased
• Cooking thermometer

Method:

1. Prepare the tin. Fold the strip of baking paper/foil in half and, holding the folded edge, fold it over by 6.5cm, then open up the foil on either side and re-crease the centre folds to make a standing divider. Place the divider in the centre of the prepared tin to separate it into two halves.
2. Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F/Gas 4.
3. Make the sponges. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter, caster sugar and almond extract until pale and creamy. One at a time, add the eggs, adding a tablespoon of the flour to prevent curdling, if necessary. Fold in the remaining flour, then divide the mixture in half. Fold a few drops of pink food colouring into one half to make the colour of strawberry ice-cream.
4. Spoon each sponge mixture into the separate sides of the tin. Level both with a palette knife. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until well risen and golden brown, and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave in the tin to cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
5. Make the jam. Place the apricots and sugar in a small, deep-sided pan. Cook over a low heat until the sugar dissolves, crushing the apricots with a potato masher. Increase the heat to high and boil for 4 minutes, until the temperature reaches 105°C/221°F on the cooking thermometer. Remove the pan from the heat and pass the jam through a metal sieve into a heatproof bowl. Leave to cool and set.
6. Make the buttercream. Using a wooden spoon or an electric hand whisk, beat the butter and the icing sugar in a bowl until very pale, fluffy and smooth. Set aside until ready to use.
7. Make the marzipan. Blitz the ground almonds, icing sugar and caster sugar in a food processor. Add the egg white and almond extract, then pulse to a smooth paste. Remove from the processor and knead in a very small amount of yellow food colouring until the marzipan is a pastel yellow colour. Cover with a tea towel until ready to use.
8. Assemble the mini Battenbergs. Once the sponges are cool, slice each one lengthways into 4 equal, long strips. Turn each strip of sponge onto its side, then cut each sponge strip lengthways down the middle. You should end up with 8 long fingers of white sponge and 8 long fingers of pink sponge.
9. Lay all the sponge fingers, alternating white and pink, side-by-side and spread thinly with buttercream.
10. Lay 2 alternating strips of sponge side-by-side and another 2 on top of each other (so that the pink sits on top of the white, and the white sits on top of the pink), spreading all sides with buttercream to stick them together and give a chequerboard effect. Trim the ends, then cut into 8cm lengths.
11. Roll out the marzipan on a work surface lightly dusted with granulated sugar to about 3mm thick. Cut the marzipan into eight 18 x 8cm rectangles, re-rolling as necessary.
12. Brush a marzipan rectangle very thinly with the apricot jam. Place a mini cake onto the middle of the marzipan and wrap it around the cake, smoothing it over the sides so it is tightly wrapped. Turn the cake over so the marzipan seam is on the underside. Repeat with the remaining marzipan, jam and cakes until all eight are complete.

Recipe from thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk