Vegan Battenberg Cake
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
A vegan Battenberg cake, with a tropical twist! With cake flavoured with pandan and coconut - this is a delightful spin on a classic springtime dessert.
Author:
Serves: 8-12 slices
Ingredients
  • 3 cups sifted plain flour (350g) - sift before measuring!
  • 1 cup sugar (200g)
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 1½ cups plant milk
  • 3 tbsp aquafaba
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla powder, or extract
  • ½ tsp pandan extract
  • 1 tbsp beet powder or 2 drops red food colouring
  • 3 tbsp desiccated coconut
  • ½ cup apricot jam, warmed
  • 1 block golden marzipan (500g)
  • Icing sugar, for dusting
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 170C, and line and divide a 7-inch square brownie tray with foil and baking paper (link to a video above).
  2. In a large bowl, add the sifted flour, sugar and baking powder. Mix well. Form a well in the centre and add in the milk, aquafaba, oil and vanilla. Mix until just combined.
  3. Divide the batter into two. Add the pandan extract to one half and mix well. To the other half of the batter, mix in the beet powder or red food colouring, and coconut.
  4. Pour each flavoured batter into each half of the prepared brownie tray. Bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into a middle of the cake comes out clean.
  5. Let the cakes cool fully before removing from the pan and peeling the parchment and foil away.
  6. Use a sharp serrated knife to divide each coloured cake rectangle into 2 (for a 4 cubed design) or 5 (for a 9 cubed design) strips. If you chose to make it with nine cubes, one stip will be spare, so you can eat that up!
  7. Level each strip so they are about the same height and flat (remove and dome-shaped tops). This will help with assembly as they won't slip off each other!
  8. Heat the jam until runny. Paint a pandan strip with apricot jam on the outside, and line a pink coconut strip beside it.
  9. IF YOU ARE MAKING A 4 CUBED DESIGN - Paint apricot jam over the top of your two assembled strips, then paste on the remaining two stips of cake, this time placing a new pink strip on top of the green one, and the new green strip on top of the pink one.
  10. IF YOU ARE MAKING A 9 CUBED DESIGN - A little trickier but still doable! All you need to do is to add another stip (pandan) beside the pink one, then paint the tops of all your assembled stips with jam, and continue to paste cake strips on top of this, making each stip a different colour from the one beneath it.
  11. Dust a surface with icing sugar, and roll out your marzipan into a large rectangle which is large enough to wrap around your Battenberg cake. Paint the middle of the marzipan with some jam, and place the block of your assembled cake strips on top. Paint the whole cake with apricot jam, then wrap the marzipan around your cake, pressing down so the jam sticks the cake to the marzipan.
  12. Use a knife to trim the ends of your cake off, so you end up with neat, exposed ends of cake through which you can see your cubed design!
Recipe by The Sasha Diaries at https://thesashadiaries.com/2018/04/09/vegan-battenberg-cake-pandan/