Daring Bakers: Battenberg Cake

This month Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! challenged us to make a  Battenberg Cake. She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.  Well that was the idea anyway - mine was not exactly created with ease.

The first thing you might want to know is what is a Battenberg Cake?  I know I had no idea.  Well Mandy tells us this about the origins of the Battenberg Cake:

The first Battenberg cake was made to celebrate the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Victoria, to husband Prince Louis of Battenberg. It’s traditionally flavored with almond and has the signature Battenberg markings, that is, the yellow and pink squares (said to represent the four princes of Battenberg).

Well Mandy's cakes looked gorgeous and I had high hopes of doing the same.  I had never worked with the marzipan that covers the cake before but I have done fondant cakes which are similar.  My first mistake was waiting too long.  I waited until two days before it was supposed to be done to try making the marzipan.  I tried doing a cooked marzipan recipe that Mandy provided for us.  It seemed easy enough but even when I had added all the liquid that it told us we might not need - the marzipan was still a crumbly, oily mess.

Well I posted on The Daring Kitchen website about my issues and Mandy came to the rescue.  She said I could just blend in a little more water, and if it got too wet I could add some more confectioners sugar.  I added the water and sure enough, I think I added too much.  Problem number 2 - I just ran out of confectioners sugar and I only have two hours before I have to get this done.  Quick cook the cake - no problems there.

Back to the marzipan.  I decided to make my own confectioners sugar.  I put a bunch of sugar in my food processor and process away.  Well I don't seem to be able to get it quite fine enough but I decide to use it anyway to help thicken the marzipan.  The marzipan gets better but I am sure it still wasn't right.  Just not firm enough to work with and it decides to stretch and tear when I try to cover the cake.
 
As for the results.  You can see from the picture it is not spectacular looking.  The marzipan is sagging and probably too thick.  The cake was marvelous - came out perfectly.  The marzipan tasted fabulous - just a tiny bit gritty from too course sugar I used.

This was a fun challenge but I sure need to allow myself more time for this kind of challenge.  I will definitely be taking another shot at marzipan sometime in the future.  If you would like to try making a Battenberg cake you can find the recipe I used along with others at The Daring Kitchen recipe archive.

Eggs Benedict Arnold

What are Eggs Benedict Arnold you might ask.  It is when your eggs and everything else turn traitor on you.  It has been a while since I have posted anything so I thought I needed to try something new.  One of the things on my unwritten list of things to try was poached eggs.  

Poached eggs was probably one of the things that got me started in cooking.  I remember cooking lots of poached eggs as a child.  Not "real" poached eggs but the kind you make in the little cups.  As a kid I remember liking how perfect they looked if you made them right.  You had to time it just right so the yolk was runny but the white wasn't.  Then I would flip them over on toast and if everything went right they didn't break until you were ready to break them.

Well that was over 30 years ago so I thought it was time to try making poached eggs for real - in boiling water.  What better way to use poached eggs than in Eggs Benedict.  That way I would get to try out making a Hollandaise sauce too.

 How many things can go wrong in one recipe.  My first mistake was believing that I could make the Hollandaise sauce ahead of time.  The timing is kind of short on Eggs Benedict so I liked the idea of pre-making the Hollandaise.  I have fallen for the same make-ahead thing twice when making butter cream frosting and it didn't work either time.  It didn't work here either.  Making the Hollandaise does take a little while and you need to stir the whole time but it wasn't too hard and this step actually went well.  The sauce looked and tasted good.  The recipe said I could store it and reheat at 50% in the microwave - stirring every 10 seconds.  As soon as it started to get warm the sauce separated and the eggs started to cook - it ended up looking kind of curdled.  

I think the bad sauce would have been enough wrong but that wasn't the end.  I cooked the English muffins in the broiler and burnt them - not too big of a disaster - I threw some more in and got the next batch right.  The eggs ended up over done too - probably because I was so flustered dealing with all the other stuff.  

Considering all the issues they didn't taste too bad - you could tell what they were supposed to be at least.  I won't make you view any pictures of this one though - it wasn't pretty.  I will put this on my list to try again.  Give me a month or two to get over it and I will try again and hopefully get it right next time.