Step 2

For the almond sponge, put the butter, sugar, flour, ground almonds, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and almond extract into a large bowl and beat with an electric whisk until smooth.

Step 3

Scrape it into the pan, push it into the corners and bake for 25–30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then finish cooling on a rack.

Step 4

Line the pan again and make the pink sponge the same way, leaving the almond extract out and folding the pink coloring in at the end. Bake and cool it as before.

Step 5

Warm the apricot jam in a small pan until runny and push it through a strainer.

Step 6

Barely trim two opposite edges of the almond sponge and trim the third properly. Measure its height, then cut four slices from the trimmed edge, each as wide as the sponge is tall. Do the same with the pink one.

Step 7

Take two almond and two pink slices and trim them all to the same length. Roll one block of marzipan on a surface dusted with powdered sugar to just over 20 cm wide and about 0.5 cm thick.

Step 8

Brush the marzipan with jam and lay one pink and one almond slice side by side at one end, jam between them, leaving 4 cm of marzipan clear at that end.

Step 9

Brush jam over the top of the pair and sit the other two slices on them with the colors swapped, so the cut end reads as a checkerboard. Trim the marzipan to the length of the cake.

Step 10

Lift the marzipan and smooth it around the cake with your hands, leaving a small fold along the bottom edge before you press it onto the first side. Trim the opposite side to match the fold.

Step 11

Crimp the edges between finger and thumb, or press them with fork prongs, and mark the ten slices across the top with the prongs if you like.

Step 12

Build the second Battenberg the same way from the remaining slices and marzipan. They keep in an airtight box for three days, or a month in the freezer.