Instruction

• 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)
• To make the almond sponge, put the butter, sugar, flour, ground almonds, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and almond extract in a large bowl
• Beat with an electric whisk until the mix comes together smoothly
• 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
• Cool in the tin for 10 mins, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling while you make the second sponge
• For the pink sponge, line the tin as above
• Mix all the ingredients together as above, but don’t add the almond extract
• Fold in some pink food colouring
• Then scrape it all into the tin and bake as before
• Cool
• To assemble, heat the jam in a small pan until runny, then sieve
• Barely trim two opposite edges from the almond sponge, then well trim a third edge
• 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
• Discard or nibble leftover sponge
• Repeat with pink cake
• Take 2 x almond slices and 2 x pink slices and trim so they are all the same length
• 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
• 5cm thick
• 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
• Brush more jam on top of the sponges, then sandwich remaining 2 slices on top, alternating colours to give a checkerboard effect
• Trim the marzipan to the length of the cakes
• 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
• Trim opposite side to match size of fold, then crimp edges using fingers and thumb (or, more simply, press with prongs of fork)
• If you like, mark the 10 slices using the prongs of a fork
• Assemble second Battenberg and keep in an airtight box or well wrapped in cling film for up to 3 days
• Can be frozen for up to a month