Mary Berry’s coffee and walnut Battenberg cake is a sweet take on the classic dessert

For the cake

• 100g margarine
• 100g caster sugar
• 2 free-range eggs
• 100g self-raising flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 50g ground almonds
• few drops vanilla extract
• 3 tsp milk
• 1½ tsp instant coffee powder
• 25g shelled walnuts, chopped

For the coffee butter icing

• 100g icing sugar
• 40g butter, softened
• ½ tsp instant coffee powder
• 1½ tsp milk

To decorate the cake

• 225g white marzipan
• 5 small walnut pieces

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Grease the sides of your cake pan. Cut out a piece of greaseproof paper that’s about 7.5 cm longer than the length of the tin. Fold the paper so it has a centre peak, then line it in the pan so the peak separates two sides of the pan. You’ll be pouring different flavours in the two sides of the pan.

Beat the margarine, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and ground almonds in a large bowl for about 2-3 minutes, or until smooth, slightly lighter in colour and glossy looking. Spoon slightly more than half the mixture into a separate bowl and stir in the vanilla extract and 1½ teaspoons of the milk. Set aside.

Mix the coffee in the remaining 1½ teaspoons of milk, stirring until it has dissolved, then stir this into the other bowl of mixture along with the chopped walnuts. Spoon the vanilla mixture into one half of the tin and the coffee-walnut mixture into the other half. Level the surface of each half with a knife. Check the paper divider is still straight and in the middle.

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Bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes. It should be springy and shrunken slightly. Leave to cool for a few minutes, then loosen the cake from the sides of the pan with a knife. Turn it out on the table and peel off the parchment.

For the icing, sift the icing sugar into a medium bowl and add in butter. Mix the coffee and milk together until the coffee has dissolved, then pour in the bowl. Beat everything with a wooden spoon.

Trim off the edges of the cake and cut it into four equal strips. Lay one vanilla next to a coffee-walnut strip, and stick them together with icing. Spread icing on top, then lay the other vanilla and other coffee walnut strips on top of their opposite flavour.

Roll out the marzipan and place the cake on top. Roll up the sides around the cake, using icing to make it stick. Top it with walnuts.