Birthday Battenburg

Pete has always loved Battenburg, and rather rashly I'd promised to try baking him one for his 60th birthday. There wasn't time on the actual day, but this afternoon Alex and I finally got around to having a go. I'd forgotten to buy marzipan, so made it from scratch using all the ground almonds we had in the cupboard. Similarly I had no apricot jam, so we used black cherry. The red food colouring was the wrong shade and made the cake mix an interesting shade of carrot orange. Our finished attempt was rather rustic, but it actually tasted delicious - much better than the over-sweet shop-bought type. Though on reflection, I'm not sure I'll ever bake another one!