B is for Battenberg: that Battenberg cake, where did it come from?

Here we have the second instalment to the Special Collections A-Z series. This one’s all about cake; specifically Battenberg cake so it’s making an appearance this week for B.

Many people ask us what is the origin of the Battenberg cake, and is it connected with Lord Mountbatten’s family?  Mountbatten’s father was Prince Louis of Battenberg, but he was forced to change his surname to Mountbatten during the First World War, when anti-German feeling was very strong.  He then took the title of Marquis of Milford Haven, which was inherited by Mountbatten’s older brother, born Prince George of Battenberg.

Photo of Battenberg family in 1902, showing the future lord Mountbatten on his mother’s lap.  On his left are his sisters, Alice, later the mother of Prince Philip, and Louise, the future Queen of Sweden  MS62/MB/3/52

One theory is that the cake was invented to celebrate the wedding of Mountbatten’s parents in 1884, but there appears to be no evidence for this. 

Photo of Princess Victoria of Hesse and Prince Louis of Battenberg two years before their marriage [MS62/MB/3/86]

Photo of Princess Victoria of Hesse on her wedding day, 1885  [MS62/MB/3/86]

Another theory is that the four squares represent the four Battenberg brothers: Prince Louis, Prince Alexander (briefly king of Bulgaria before abdicating), Prince Henry who married Princess Beatrice (Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter) and Prince Franz Joseph, but this can not be true as the original cake consisted of 9 panels.  This idea seems to quite recent, and was repeated on The Great British Bake-off.

Photo of the three brothers of Prince Louis: Alexander, Henry and Francis Joseph MB3/86

Also there appears to be no connection with the Prussian village of Battenberg from which the family took their name. 

Print of Battenberg  [MS62/MB/3/66]

One theory can be dismissed easily: that it was invented by Hitler’s mother or grandmother!  Apparently one can fit a swastika into the design.

The most accepted explanation is that the cake was invented by a 19th century pastry cook, Frederick Vine, in 1898, much later than the Battenberg marriage.  Vine published the recipe in his book Saleable Shop Goods, in which his cake had nine sections, alternately red and white and encased in almond paste.  Vine had previously published (in 1890) a simpler recipe, also called Battenburg cake, which was a fruit cake with no coloured panes.  Also in the 1890s several similar cakes with multiple panes were being made with different names including the Neapolitan Roll published by Robert Wells, which only had four panes like the modern cake, and the Gateau à la Domino which was probably invented by Mrs Agnes Marshall, the editor of The Table magazine.  A Dundee baker, John Scrymgeour advertised his Battenberg cake in the Dundee Courier in 1885, using fresh fruit for flavour and colour, while Thomas Sims advertised his cake in the Gloucester Echo in 1887 using lemons at a cost of 6d each.

The name may have been added as a marketing ploy, to connect it with royalty, though it was often spelt incorrectly as Battenburg.  It may well have been in existence for many years previously, known as the Church Window Cake.  The simpler four panel version we know today was probably begun to facilitate mass production in the 1920s by the Lyons company and others.

BATTENBERG CAKE
Crush four ounces of almonds with one egg and two table-spoonfuls of rum; then put twelve ounces of sugar with twelve yolks of eggs into a pan. Beat this until it is frothy, then add the crushed almonds, two ounces of currants, blanched and cleaned, and two ounces of mixed peel that has been passed through hot water.
Add slowly eight ounces of flour rubbed through a sieve. Mix slowly, putting in the ten whites of eggs whipped firm. Finish with six ounces of good melted butter. Cook in a plum-cake mould, buttered. Turn it out of mould to cool. Soak it in kummel, brush over with apricot jelly, and ice with fondant or syrup of kummel. Sprinkle the sides and top with chopped pistachios. Probable cost, 3s. 6d.

Recipe from Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery

The modern recipe does not contain dried fruit.  Fortnum and Mason’s have been serving up their version of the cake as part of their afternoon tea since the 1920s.

There was another Battenberg wedding in the 1880s, that of Prince Henry to Princess Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria in 1885.  Their wedding cake was a very elaborate affair, bearing no resemblance to any version of the Battenberg cake as we know it.

[Credit: Gary Perkin iStock]

Today, the chequer pattern on emergency vehicles is officially called the Battenberg pattern, and is in use in many countries including, Australia and Iceland.

We’d like to credit food historian Ivan Day who has conducted much of the research on this topic.

Join us next week in our A-Z journey when we move onto to C for Charlotte Mary Yonge, the nineteenth-century novelist.