Great British Bake Off: Patisserie Week

Semi-final week of GBBO means patisserie, so Pastry Chef Laura Young shares her sour cherry and lemon Battenberg cake recipe.

Sour cherry and lemon Battenberg

Makes two cakes (20 slices)

Ingredients

175g unsalted butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
140g self raising flour
50g ground almonds
½ tsp
2 lemons, zest only
Cherry flavour drops
Yellow and purple food colouring
1kg marzipan
200g lemon curd or jam

Method

– In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
– Whisk in the eggs one at a time, then stir in all of the dry ingredients
– Divide the mixture into two separate bowls: to one, add the yellow food colouring and the lemon zest, and two the second add the purple colouring and cherry flavour drops. You can use any flavour or colour here – whatever you fancy!
– Grease two 8-inch cake tins and line with baking parchment
– Pre-heat the oven to 180C fan and bake for 20-30 minutes
– Once cooked, allow the cakes to cool – then trim two equal rectangles of each colour
– Hold them together with lemon curd (or any type of jam) so you have a block of four cakes
– Fully cover the cake with a layer of marzipan and cut into bite-size slices. Repeat the process for the second cake

Halloween afternoon tea
Our pastry team are serving the Battenberg alongside our pumpkin spice latte macarons and other treats for Halloween afternoon tea from 28 October to 3 November – see the menu and book here.