Impress your guests with this easy to make bake – just two flavoured sponge cakes cut into thin strips and wrapped in marzipan
Makes 2 cakes (each serving 8)
Ready in 1 hour 10 minutes (plus cooling time)
Ingredients:
225g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
225g caster sugar
225g butter, softened
4 medium eggs, beaten
2tsp finely grated orange zest
1tbsp orange juice
1tbsp cocoa powder blended with 1tbsp hot water
4tbsp apricot jam, warmed and sieved
450g marzipan
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/Gas 4. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and add the sugar, butter and eggs. Beat with an electric mixer until the mixture is pale, smooth and creamy.
Divide the mixture equally between two bowls and fold the orange rind and juice into one bowl and the blended cocoa powder into the other.
Spoon each mixture into separate greased and base-lined 18cm square shallow cake tins and level the surface. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until the cakes are risen and just firm to the touch. Cool for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Trim the edges from each cake then cut each cake into four even-sized strips. Using a little of the jam, sandwich two of the chocolate strips with two of the orange flavoured strips to create a chequered effect oblong cake.
Roll out half the marzipan on a surface dusted lightly with icing sugar to an 18 x 30cm rectangle. Brush the top of the assembled cake with a little more jam and press onto the marzipan. Brush the remaining sides of the cake with jam and carefully wrap the marzipan all around the cake. Use your fingertips to crimp along the top edges of the cake. Repeat with the remaining cake strips and marzipan to make a second cake.
