Today we cut open the Battenburg to see if we’d succeeded or not. A few things we learned:
- The recipe was much too big. A pound of sugar, a pound of flour and six eggs made twice as much cake as we wanted, so we had to use two cake tins when the recipe only called for one (how were they measuring it?) and that led to further complexity with cutting and trimming it
- There wasn’t enough flavour. The cocoa powder certainly made it look right, but it wasn’t a moist, chocolatey sponge, just a bit dry and flavourless. I guess we probably overbaked a bit
- We used an entire jar of jam to stick it together. Which all vanished by the time we ate the cake. Again, probably because it was too dry.
Then again, I’m not sure how strong a flavour you do want on a Battenburg. I’ll rewatch the Great British Bake Off and see what they did, and then emulate some of those. I feel we’d do better with some fruit flavours – maybe berry and citrus? But that’s an experiment for another week. Just being able to bake a cake and have it not collapse is victory enough for now.
Perhaps surprisingly, I didn’t wake up in agony today, sore from yesterday’s climb. Perhaps that means the delayed onset muscle soreness arrives tomorrow, or I dodged it. I did have both kids sleeping in my bed last night, while my wife was downstairs on the sofa. Now, with her passed out upstairs the roles are reversed. As it gets colder, we’ll need to huddle together for warmth again …