It’s birthday season in the Elliott family. I think I’ve mentioned in the past that birthdays were something that the Elliotts didn’t do very well, particularly while the kids were growing up. Mr NQN and his siblings were given all sorts of strange items, usually picked up from around the house. Indeed one year, Mr NQN’s brother was given an item he actually owned, a rusty clamp dragged in from under the house, ceremoniously wrapped in newspaper.
Nowadays they do try a bit more although there was the Christmas where Mr NQN’s mum Tuulikki gave Mr NQN a bottle of Domestos, some Ajax and a toilet brush. Another year for my birthday, I received one quarter of a birthday card. That is, the top quarter of a regular sized card. There it was, measuring 3 inches across and 1 inch down with the top of a palm tree which made very little sense to me until I realised that they’d sliced off the top quarter of a regular card. We never asked Mr NQN’s sister Amaya and her husband Laporello why they did it although we were quite curious. I was really hoping that I would get the rest of the card in three parts over the next three years and that there was some sort of puzzle or fascinating intention behind it.
The baking of the birthday cakes usually goes to me and I’m usually happy to do this. One of the upcoming birthday cake recipients this month is Laporello who is a graphic designer. For his cake, I decided to combine this month’s Daring Baker’s challenge, a Battenberg cake with something artistic and graphic so I made him a Mondrian patterned Battenberg cake. The cake was chosen as June’s challenge because of the Queen’s jubilee. It was originally created to celebrate the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Victoria, to husband Prince Louis of Battenberg and is essentially an almond flavoured sponge cake that displays a chequerboard pattern once cut open.
Chocolate plastique-a possible weapon
The easiest part was the actual baking of the cake which I thought would be the hardest. The recipe was clear and showed how to make a regular square cake tin into a Battenberg cake tin with just the use of foil and baking parchment. A little too eagerly I sliced up the cake while it was still warm and delicate and then proceeded to make the chocolate plastique covering. This looked promising but I ended up with a hard disaster unable to knead it into modelling chocolate. Instead, I decided to do make a chocolate ganache and smooth the edges. Okay, it might look a bit makeshift but somehow white fondant or marzipan might not look as good as a dark border.
One of the least attractive things ever to grace the blog 
Chocolate plastique gone wild, or more accurately, gone stubborn and stiff
*Crash* *thud*
“@#*^&*(#&@(*(#!!!”
If you were outside my door this Monday around 3pm you would have heard that sound. The sound of disaster as the camera tripod head came loose from its fixture and came crashing to the ground smashing my only two black plates to pieces. Small mercy was that the head narrowly missed the Mondrian Battenberg cake that I had spent the better part of the day making and assembling. I sighed picking up the plate pieces and throwing away the rock-like chocolate plastique. Some days are just not made for baking. Or for operating heavy machinery or even light machinery. Thankfully the Battenberg cake was spared and I wouldn’t be stuck giving him a smashed in cake or perhaps more suitably, a quarter of a cake
So tell me Dear Reader, do you make the cakes for your families and friends? And do you look forward to or dread this (or both, like me? ). Do you tailor the cakes to suit the recipient?
Blog-checking lines:
Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.
Mondrian Battenberg Cake
Ingredients
- ¾ cup (1½ sticks) 175gm / 6 oz Unsalted Butter, softened & cut in cubes
- ¾ cup / 175gm / 6 oz Caster Sugar
- 1¼ cups / 175gm / 6 oz Self-Raising Flour
- 3 Large Eggs, room temp
- ½ cup / 65gm/ 2 1/3 oz Ground Almonds (Can be substituted with ground rice)
- 3/4 tsp / 3½ gm Baking Powder
- ½ tsp / 2½ ml Vanilla Extract
- 1/4 tsp (1¼ ml) Almond Extract
- Red, yellow and blue Food Colouring, paste, liquid or gel
To Finish
- 375 dark chocolate
- 4 tablespoons pure cream
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to moderate 350°F/180°C/160°C Fan Assisted/Gas Mark 4.
2. Grease an 8”/20cm square baking tin with butter.
3. Generously spray a tin with cooking oil or brush with butter. Take three pieces of foil and fold it over twice so that it can sit up by itself. Trim each piece to fit the length of the tin. Then take three pieces of parchment paper and fold each in half and place the foil in the divide. Place as shown above so that the foil sits up and the parchment lines the base. You need to make four divisions in this tin, the largest for the plain or cream coloured batter. Also place some parchment on any gaps and on the sides that aren’t covered.
4. OR Prepare Battenberg tin by brushing the tin with melted butter and flouring.
5. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whisk together the dry ingredients then combine with the butter and eggs and beat together just until the ingredients are combined and the batter is smooth.
6. Spoon a third of the mixture into the one side of the prepared baking tin.
7. Divide the remaining batter into three and place each in a separate bowl and tint them with the colours-be generous with the colours. Stir until the colour is thoroughly distributed, add more colour if needed
8. Spoon each batter into the cavities of the prepared baking tin.
9. Smooth the surface of the batter with a spatula, making sure batter is in each corner.
10. Bake for 30-35 mins until the cake is well risen, springs back when lightly touched and a toothpick comes out clean (it should shrink away from the sides of the pan).
11. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out to cool thoroughly on a wire rack
12. Once completely cool, trim the edges of the cake with a long serrated knife
13. Trim the sponges. It helps enormously if you use a Mondrian pattern as a guide which really helps when cutting up your sponges.
14. Neaten the strips and trim as necessary so that your checkered pattern is as neat and even as possible. Put them against each other so that you can see what it will look like.
15. Make the chocolate ganache by melting the chocolate in a double boiler or in a microwave and adding the cream. Stir until smooth.
16. Using an angled spatula, spread the ganache over the cake pieces to adhere them to each other. If your ganache looks like it is setting, place it in the microwave on 50% for 20 seconds to loosen it up again and keep reapplying. Then, spread the ganache over the top and sides.
17. Using a cup of warm water and a clean angled spatula, you can smooth the ganache by dipping the spatula into the water, shaking the water off and then applying firm but gently pressure buffing out any lines or creases.
The top shows the ganache that has been smoothed over and the bottom half is the unsmooth chocolate ganache.
Smoothed chocolate ganache
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90 Comments | Add your own
Wow, this is seriously cool. You are one talented baker!
Great job! It looks very artsy.
Cheers,
Rosa
Hi Lorraine,
Love your colourful pattern. Will post mine tomorrow. Have you tried softening the modeling chocolate in mw, set on the lowest temp, with two min interval. I always make mine and keep it in refrigerator until needed. Of course it becomes rock solid but after about say 2-3 mins in mw it becomes soft like play doh.
BTW your idea of using ganache instead of plastique is brilliant.
This is totally awesome – love it!
So cool!
I love the graphic look you gave this cake – perfect birthday gift!
What a lovely and thoughtful cake. I was the cake baker in my extended family years and years ago. I’ve baked a typewriter cake, guitar cake, white water rafting cake, barbie cake, apartment layout cake, bunny cake and so on.
Were Mr. NQNs family serious with those strange gifts? Did Mr. NQN think they were good gifts? Just wondering.
I love Mondarian cakes but I would never attempt something that requires so much precision because I would find it way too stressful. I wanted you to mention the paintings (named after the art of Piet Mondrian) because it’s one of the things that attracted me to these cakes in the first place but since you didn’t I am doing it here
That cake is so beautiful!
Hehe, Lorraine, I had a few giggles while reading this post. Glad you and the cake were ok, sorry for your plates… (do I put a smiley face here or sad, can’t choose…)
Cake looks so pretty, and well designed!
What a pretty cake! Saw on Instagram that you were cooking with Paula Joye !! My 2 favourite bloggers, hope you had fun
Wow!! I love your blogs here in rural France. This reminds me of your stained glass jelly which I tried with great success
A fun design! I always make birthday cakes for friends and colleagues but not family, who perversely don’t appreciate it. I like doing it – love planning what to make.
It’s lovely! Almost too good to eat and I’m sure was well received.
I’ve heard of some pretty funny and/or bizarre family traditions when it comes to giving gifts, but never heard of anything like a quarter of a card with no later explanation! Such a mystery
Wow that is a cake that says “effort” and if the recipient is appreciative of that, then they don’t deserve it!
You know, I do make cakes for friends and family. I find that it is the best way to get satisfaction our of baking, without actually having to eat the whole cake yourself.
Whenever there is a gathering in our family, everyone always offers a cake. Then we all get together and declare which cake is the best. A bit of friendly competition!
That is spectacular Lorriane!
For the very first time, I am tempted to give serious baking a shot. What a beautiful cake….
This cake is so adequate for birthday celebrations
It looks and sounds absolutely stunning! And I love that foil trick! I bet it would work with tonnes of other cakes
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
I have somehow inherited the job of baking all the birthday cakes. Yesterday was my NIL’s birthday and my grandson wanted a mermaid cake for her. I made a plain sponge and iced it with 7 minute frosting – seafoam – a little mermaid doll resting on the top with a few sliver cutout fish completed the picture.
I’m sure we could dine out for weeks on Mr NQN’s childhood stories. Please do tell…what kind and thoughtful birthday best wishes were they able to write on that one-quarter of a card? And there are some very unusual names in the family. Are they of foreign background or just alternate? Sorry to hear of the kitchen disasters – like you say, some days you should just stay out of the kitchen. Super impressive cake, Lorraine xx
love the idea of separating the tin, will definitely use it!
its funny how some days things just seem to go from worse to bad in the baking department…\
but i looooove your final result, i will have to give it ago for someones birthday, my own maybe!
Fascinating. What a cake. Yet again, you bedazzle anew. And the post made me laugh. I think Mr. NQN’s family sounds wonderfully original and quirky.
Yes, I often make the cakes, but more like the cakes of my mother or grandmother–nothing like you produce regularly. Good, but not so original on my part.
Wow, this is amazing! I love the vibrant colours against the dark chocolate.
I always volunteer to bake the cake for family birthdays, then I spend the rest of the time stressing until the first bites when I know it tastes good
oh my – how clever!
That’s incredible, hun! I’m DEFINITELY stealing this idea for my architectural friend’s birthday cake!
I always thought a traditional Battenberg was pretty boring looking, but these colours are so vibrant! I also never thought of sectioning off the tin like that either- great idea!
I love making birthday cakes, but perhaps you should have presented him with one third of a cake… Just to make him feel more at home
Oh Lorraine I completely sympathise, many a cake item or close has been thrown at 1am whilst trying to construct it! I bake everyones birthday cakes, family, best friends, partners, daughter (of course) and all 6 of my friends children every year for years. Most of time the children request their theme, I love it when they dont as its less pressure. Tonight I actually have my mother’s 65th birthday and I have made a Pink Ombre 5 layer cake with lemon curd off the blog by Sockkerus, not as hard as I thought but we’ll see as I have to contruct it this afternoon.
Such a beautiful cake! I was just looking at a recipe for a traditional Battenberg cake yesterday. Yours is much prettier though!
Surreal!!! Will be in Sydney in a couple of weeks, can’t wait!!
Ciao
Alessandra
I love these stories about your in-laws. Mr NQN is very lucky you didn’t put on your cape and run once you got to know his family before you got married!!
But it was just one of my gifts that year.
When I was a child my mum once wrapped a watch I already owned and gave it to me as a birthday present.
OH GOD!!! This looks amazing but so much more patience would be needed than what I have!!!
Gorgeous cake, I hope the recipient was suitably impressed
Well done Lorraine – I always look forward to seeing what you’ve done with a cake. While not inclined to fiddling about with cake decorations myself, I enjoy seeing yours – they are always so inventive.
Clever, clever, clever, Lorraine! I love your battenberg! Yes I am generally the birthday cake maker – from a very young age. And most of the time I love it. My best memory is at about 17, I made a “boxed shirt” cake for my brother-in-law to be – it was his first ever birthday cake! Birthday in his family were never momentous.
Your poor plate! Yes, I too know the pain & panic of the rapidly descending camera. It always seems to happen just when something else crucial is going on, too!
An this is a brilliant cake, though I think I’d rage quit or end up in tears at the chocolate bit.
Looks not to difficult to make, but I don’t know, I think it is really not so easy.
So you only broken two dished? Could be worst, isn’t it? At least your cake was not damaged.
Perfect cake for a graphic designer. I bet he loved it! The anecdotes from Mr. NQN’s past with family gifts had me laughing:)
Oh my gosh, I have so had kitchen days like that. But your Battenberg came out really great – I love the colors and the inspiration behind it! Great job!
OMG, poor you and Mr. NQN on those past birthday gifts. Yikes! They say it’s the thought that counts, but I dunno if you want to go there on those gifts. LOL
P.S. The cake is a work of art. It should be in a museum right next to a real Mondrian. Now, that would be so cool, wouldn’t it?
You have A LOT of patience, TRUE!
But your creations and photos always INSPIRE to do!
Not much of a baker tis me!
But always look to surprising friends for their birthdays in making THEIR favorite recipe!
This looks like painted glass!
Our family is not into gift-giving but I have yet to receive a quarter of a greeting card
Your Mondrian-inspired battenberg looks impressive, I wanted to make a rubiks-cube one but I got lazy so I just did the traditional colors. Oh my, I didn’t have an easy time with my chocolate plastique, but I thought it was because I used honey instead of corn syrup.
I can’t believe you took up the challenge of baking this cake! Kudos to you!
It’s such a coincidence that I saw the battenberg cake featured on a British food programme just last night! Maybe it’s a sign that I should attempt this soon.
I like how you chose to coat it in chocolate rather than wrapping the cake in marzipan since I have yet to acquire the taste for marzipan. The colours that you chose for the sponge gives it a very mod look.
Sorry to hear about the crashing of tripod incident. It happens to the best of us. Just take It that it’s time to reward yourself with some new plates.
This is an amazing cake, Lorraine! I’ve been wondering how to make one of those cakes for ages (it’s birthday season in my house, too), so thanks for the clear instructions! I look forward to trying this soon =)
I had a disaster with the modelling chocolate too – what a waste of chocolate! Love your finished product though, very impressive.
WONDERFUL CAKE, mine was very crumbled. Your pattern is amazing, congratulations,
I love the colours Lorraine! It looks great
Very cool! I saw the original Mondrian cake and thought it was waaaaay to difficult to attempt at home – you’re brave! I love making birthday cakes for family and friends – it usually turns into several days of painstaking planning and recipe vetting, then lots of modifications and the eventual realization that I should have just followed the dang recipe as written…
I do, but only simple cakes, because I’m a simple person and I force my family to be simple to. This is so impressive, Lorraine! I must never let my family see this
I always try to bake a cake for my friends birthdays
LOL if i don’t bake you a cake it usually means I don’t like you much HAHAHA I’m such a silly person 
Like you I both dread it and look forward to it ~ and I try to cater for the recipient but other times lol I just bake them I cake I like hehe
How pretty Lorraine! I love how easy (well you made it look easy) it was to split up the pan. I must give that a go.
Yes I love making cakes for Birthdays! I think about it ages in advance and am always brainstorming the next one.
the cake looks crazy! love the mosaic like interior!
oooh close call!! This cake looks super pretty. I need to make my family MORE cakes for special occasions. I tend to go same old which isn’t intimidating!
Heidi xo
Wow! That sounds like my father that delights in wrapping in toiletpaper very carefully or some fruit or something other he found (but could be useful). He’s chinese though, not finnish and its only he that does it in the family….
Dear Lorraine,
I think you’ve married into a very interesting family. “Tuulikki” is something I would practice pronouncing let alone being my mother-in-law. Mondrian was a genius and this is such a creative idea for a cake.
WOW! Batten burg is tricky enough to make, even with Mary Berrys directions, you’ve created a masterpiece. I’m very impressed. So lucky the camera missed the cake, after all that work I would have been reeling off the expletives. GG
Wow, love the creativity of going for something a little different…good job!
You did it again! Lorraine, your detail work is amazing. I always get excited when you bake/cook something like this. I just can’t do it but love reading about how you do it. Beautiful cake!!
This is SO awesome! You are so clever, Lorraine!
I love your Mondrian theme, it looks fantastic. And I am relieved that even an expert like you had trouble with the bloody chocolate plastique.
I am the cake maker too. However my little nieciepoo is on the move to take my title. She’s asked if she could learn from me and if I would allow her an attempt or two.
There might actually be a thrown down over this.
I really need to get back into the Baker’s Challenge swing.
This cake definitely wears the’WOW’factor tag!!! You made a good choice with the chocolate ganache – visually – truly Mondrian. What a fantastic idea to incorporate this geometric design in a cake.
I have worn the birthday cake provider label when all the first round of cousins were growing up.
The Women’s Weekly Birthday cake books were my bibles – making the long train with the popcorn smoke puffs, an echidna with choc/peppermint stick spines to Big Ted from the Playschool TV show. I used to make an italian ricotta cheesecake that was always a favourite as well as a three layer zuppa inglese sponge with strawberries and custard cream.
I loved the process but always felt a little anxious until the cake reached its destination.
How very beautiful. I love your work Lorraine!
This is inspired! More desserts should use art as inspiration, I love it
As for making cakes for family and friends, I do it all the time and absolutely love it, although there’s always a slight nervousness in case they go wrong!
Seriously adorable, you clever thing!
Lorraine, you’re so creative! And hilarious! I love hearing stories about your in-laws, you can’t make this stuff up
And they must be blessing their lucky stars to have you to bake them all these amazing cakes for every occasion. No one bakes in my family, we tend to buy our birthday cakes from Brunetti’s here in Melbourne. Maybe I’ll try my hand at baking someone’s birthday cake next time. Kind of looks like fun! 
Have always loved Battenberg cake but have never attempted to make one. Quite fiddly isn’t it Lorraine but oh so worth the end result. Was it one of the conditions of the bake off to cover in chocolate and not marzipan ? Love the bold colours , a masculine effect compared to the pastels of an original Battenberg.
Am always happy and willing to put my hand up to make birthday cakes but now my eldest daughter Stephanie has started making cakes for her two daughters , she’s getting better with each cake and grins from ear to ear at the finished product !
Right now I want to make a Battenberg cake lol !
Well this is an amazing cake.
It’s so funny that I heard about this cake first time this week when I founded on another cullinary blog I read called ” Sprinkle Bakes” and I thought it’s a very special and interesting cake. But now your post you convinced me I sure give it a try !!!Thanks for all your wonderful posts!!!
Felicia
fantastic cake – just my sort of thing with all those startling colours and chocolate – and I had a day like that today – sometimes everything can just go wrong – did the cake appear at the birthday celebrations and get the admiration it deserves?
Your Battenberg is gorgeous! I make all the birthday cakes for my family and friends and even for myself. I try to tailor them to the recipient’s tastes, but sometimes there’s something I really want to make or a challenge to do.
Love making cakes for others. I try and remember everyones favourite. I will be making one tonight! Nothing as fancy as this though.
Such a fun design. I was too chicken to bake more than 2 colors in a pan. I too had my problems with the chocolate plastique. I was able to roll it after kneading it in the food processor for 10 minutes. Unfortunately, it cracked when I wrapped it. Should have switched to ganache too. xoxo Mum
This looks like a school holiday activity for Miss 16 who always loves baking.
That is an amazing cake!
Very nice! I had a hard time doing 4 colours, this must’ve driven you crazy!
wow..so lucky the cake or camera suffered no damage..perhaps new black plates and half a birthday card next time ?:)amazing cake!
How ingenious is that idea of baking the different colour batter into different segments of the one pan; less cleaning up and time saving is a brilliant idea in my mind. Will have to keep it in mind when I need to do something like this. The cake slices look cool!
The Mondrian colors are so vivid! I bet your brother in law loved the cake; I know I do.
I’m glad only the plates broke and not the camera. It sounds like this one was quite the challenge for you, so congrats on persevering.
Fabulous.
Yes I do. Only today I was begged to make someones 21st cake. But I had to turn it down cause they wanted something intricate and it would have cost a fortune and I had to drive it 2.5 hours to the city.
People just don’t get how expensive and time consuming cakes can be!
And to think and officemate of mine were talking about Brit cakes just now – and we were just discussing Battenberg cakes! Yours looks utterly awesome!
It must be the best version for this challenge so far-
Your Mondrian cake is amazing!
Just love the flavors and colors combination
Wtg
This is fantastic, beyond belief. Nb, have you tracked down any episodes of The Great British Bakeoff? Mary Berry is a delight and it’s such a great program…
So striking!! And that ganache has so much come-hither… mmmm.
What a funny/quirky family Mr. NQN has! We they not into gifting and gave random things as stand-ins, or did they really think someone wanted to unwrap a rusty clamp… That he already owned anyway..?
So striking!! And that ganache has so much come-hither… mmmm.
What a funny/quirky family Mr. NQN has! We they not into gifting and gave random things as stand-ins, or did they really think someone wanted to unwrap a rusty clamp… That he already owned anyway..?
Another delicious creation and this has to be one of the most beautiful battenberg cakes I’ve seen. I love the combination of colors despite my general dislike of dyes… I’m featuring this in today’s Food Fetish Friday (with a link-back and attribution). Simply awesome cake…
so impressive!
yes, i do make the celebration cakes for my family, and i love it. no one in my family has standards like mine when it comes to cakes, so they’re always thrilled with what i make.
That looks very cool!
But far too much like hard work for me
I LOVE the colours you used!! So bright and fun!
I love this Mondrian-style cake
This is truly truly the cake of my dreams. It speaks to me. It is SOOOOOOO beautiful. I have dreamed of it every single day since you posted it, I just haven’t had the time to get on here and comment. I LOVE IT SO MUCH MS NQN, it’s brilliant, you clever woman you. When I can find a full day, I fully intend to make it for myself rather than just dream of yours! I only have an afternoon for now and so am about to make your Armenian Nutmeg cake for the second time. Wonderful. I’ve gone off of food blogs for a number of reasons, but I still adore yours every single day.
Wow – you are a whizz Loraine! Love it like I love the cinco de mayo pinata cookies.
I recently discovered your blog
and love it. Battenberg cakes are
not well known in the States but
having been to England many times
I know how lovely they are. Thank
you for the wonderful recipe that
I will definitely be making. I am
fond of baking and have been on
the lookout for something like this. Thanks once again!
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[...] is Araluen and Laporello’s birthdays, I made a couple of cakes for the occasion including a Mondrian Battenberg cake and a cheesecake. Amaya brings out the candles, two trick candles that won’t blow out and [...]
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