O Battenburg, O Battenburg, we love your cakey goodness! ~Quick'n easy recipe

I did it again!  

It's been a while since I've made the favored cake of this house because of diets. The reason for this time is my eldest daughter requested it for her 10th birthday.  I'm about 20 days late for that due to the lack of ingredients and time.  

It requires Almond Paste which is not always easily found in our area. I've seen recipes call for marzipan but I prefer the stronger almond flavor found in the paste. Almond paste is similar to marzipan but marzipan is about 2x the amount of sugar.

Battenburg cake is most commonly found in Britain this day in age, but it is claimed by Germans, French and the English. Food History Jottings has several bits of history on this cake if you care to take a look.  

Mab's Quick and Easy Battenburg Cake (makes 2 cakes)

•  2 prepackaged boxes of pound cake and listed ingredients on the box
• 1 jar of Baker Apricot Filling
• food coloring of your choice (you will need a lot if you don't want pastels)
• 2 boxed tubes of Odense Almond Paste 

I follow the mixing on the box of pound cake and add the food coloring to desired color.  Pour into bread pan, bake then cool.  I trim the edges of the loaf and cut each loaf into four long pieces.  I roll out the paste between 2 large pieces of wax paper until it's big enough to cover four pieces of cake.  I trim here and add it in over there until it fits.  I will wrap the 4 pieces in wax paper and actually place them on the rolled out paste to see if it's big enough to wrap. Once rolled out, remove wax paper, spread apricot on the paste in a thin layer. (you can leave the outermost piece of wax paper during assembly to make it easier to work with, it will get sticky otherwise)  Place 1 piece of cake on and spread apricot on the side that will touch the other piece.  Spread apricot on top of the two pieces and repeat until you have the 4 pieces lined with apricot wherever they touch other cake.  Then wrap it up, cut it up and enjoy!

I've made St. George's Cross inside for my All Things British loving husband by making 8 pieces of white and 10 of red cakes. I add a lot of dye for a true red cross.  Here's a pic I found online since I couldn't find one of the last one I made.