Disambiguation: I am not talking about the “morganatic cadet branch of the Grand Ducal family of Hesse-Darmstadt” (ie, the Mountbattens, ie Prince Philip’s family). I daresay, however, that those Battenbergs were also keen on the Battenbergs I’m talking about: that marzipan-forward tea-time treat, like a spongy pink and yellow Mondrian painting.
According to The Oxford Companion to Food, the term “Battenberg cake” first appeared in print in 1903, though it is believed to have been invented to celebrate the marriage of Princess Victoria (granddaughter to the Queen with the same name), to Prince Louis of Battenberg in 1884. (A taste for posh German men clearly ran strongly among royals named Victoria - related or not…). But originally it was said to have more than four panels (and it was sometimes called “Church Window Cake”).
I love the stuff. Not only because I like anything marzipanian, but also because of what it evokes for me. Another grandparental story incoming: when I was very small and my dad’s dad had died, we lived with my paternal grandmother (readers may recall that she was “Nina Nana” because of a garrulous cockatoo of that name). Nina Nana spent a lot of time sleeping in her chair, slumped forward in such a position that the cat (“Missy Mew”) could sit, tucked-in-paws, on the back of her neck. Sunday afternoons invariably involved Antiques’ Roadshow, tea in a pot1 and eating squares upon squares - cubes! - of Battenberg, me sat on Nina Nana’s hideous carpet with the Missy Mew slinking about. To this day, I peel off the marzipan, then take each square in an alternating colour sequence.
Naveen lovingly made me some recently: he claims he was making it anyway and it wasn’t just for me. I take a different view.
Battenberg. I love battenberg.
Even as a baby I was a committed tea drinker: I am told that I had milky tea in my bottle as an infant. I suspect the same will be true when, God willing, I am slumped like Nina Nana in my chair with a cat on my neck.