Host An Unforgettable Book Club Party

This British cake is traditionally made with yellow and pink sponge cake arranged in a checkerboard pattern and covered with marzipan.  In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Christopher does not like the color yellow, so I used food coloring to make the sponge cakes pink and green.

I wanted to make this cake semi-homemade so I used packaged cake and marzipan in a tube.  Sponge cake is similar to angel food cake except that angel food cake is made with just egg whites.  In an attempt to make sponge cake, I added egg yolks to the angel food cake mix.  It turned out pretty well, but I think next time I will try adding 3 egg yolks

Inspired by The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Prep: 15 minutes    Cook time:  30 minutes     Servings:  1 cake

Ingredients

• 1 package angel food cake mix
• 1 cup + 2 tablespoons water
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract
• Food coloring
• 2 tubes of marzipan or here is a marzipan recipe
• Apricot jam or preserves
• Powdered sugar for dusting

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 °F.
2. In a medium bowl, add the cake mix, water, egg yolks and almond or vanilla extract and mix well.
3. Divide the batter into two equal parts and put the desired food coloring into each one.
4. Pour into a 5×9 inch loaf pan.
5. Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
6. Let the cakes cool then place onto a cutting board.  Trim the cake so that the cake is 1.5 inches tall and 3 inches wide.  Then cut the cake in half lengthwise so you have two equal sized rectangles.
7. Place the jam in a microwave safe dish and heat for 25 seconds.   Spread the jam on the sides of each piece and assemble in the checkerboard design.   Spread jam along the outside of the cake.
8. Knead food coloring into the marzipan.   Roll it out and trim it so it is the length of the cake and wide enough to cover all 4 sides of the cake.   Cover the cake with the marzipan.
9. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

This is what a loaf pan looks like: