How to make
To make the dough, first beat the butter with the sugar very well using a mixer. Add the eggs 1 by 1. Put the baking powder to bubble in the yoghurt and add it to the butter. Flavor with orange sprinkles and vanilla.
Next, pour in the sifted flour, divide the resulting mixture into 2 parts. Add the red dye, dissolved in a spoon of milk, to one part and stir until it's colored pink.
You now have 2 different colors of cake mixture in 2 separate bowls. Prepare 2 separate rectangular cake forms, identical in size. Smear them with butter and lay out baking paper in them. Pour the yellow mixture in one of them and the pink in the other.
Heat the oven to 360°F (180 °C). Put both cake forms in the oven to bake at the same time. Bake for about 20-25 min. and check to see if your toothpick comes out dry when you poke them.
Once baked, leave the cake layers in the oven with the door open for 10 min. or so, then take them out of the forms and leave to cool completely. It's best to cool them on a cooking grid.
Cut each layer down the middle from end to end, to form 2 parts from each layer. Even out the sides of the resulting rectangular strips with a sharp knife and ruler. Cut the 2 layers the same way, to obtain 4 total strips of the same size.
For the cream mixture:
The natural dairy cream is thick, so pour 3 tbsp of it in a bowl and stir with a spoon until it becomes smooth, without any lumps. To it, add 3 tbsp fig jam, the walnuts and stir.
Assembling the cake:
Put 2 strips of the cut layers next to each other (pink and yellow) on top of baking paper or transparent foil.
Smear them with part of the cream, making sure to get it in between them as well. Place the other strips on top - pink over the yellow strip and vice versa. Wrap the resulting cube with paper, tightening it. Leave it for about 1 hour to sit as is, so that the cream gets absorbed.
For the almond marzipan:
Stir the egg yolk well with the powdered sugar (sifted beforehand) in a bowl. Add the almond flour, along with the vanilla. Stir everything very well with a spoon. Once it becomes a thick mass, begin kneading with your hands to obtain a smooth dough. If it seems too thick - dilute it slightly with a few drops of milk.
Wrapping up the cake:
Put the almond marzipan onto baking paper and roll it out with a rolling pin to a sheet 1/8 thick. Smear the cake on all sides with a brush with a little jam, applying a very thin layer. Move the cake carefully, placing it on the rolled out marzipan.
Begin to carefully wrap the cake, while removing any excess marzipan with a knife each time you roll it. What you get is like a little wrapped gift but the front and back part remain uncovered, allowing you to see the pattern. The original recipe uses these exact colors - pink next to yellow, in a checkerboard pattern. Use a wooden skewer to make decorative lines along the marzipan covering of the cake.
I decided to add even more creativity by making a branch from the marzipan, while also putting a pinch of green confectionery dye in a small part of it and making the flowers from store-bought sugar fondant.
To make the flowers, I ripped out small balls of it, about the size of lentils and pressed them between 2 sheets of foil. From the resulting sheets I formed small flowers. In the middle of each flower, I put a little sugar pearl.
I ran a dry brush with powdered confectionery dye along the marzipan and the flowers as well.
Final note:
If you're wondering what happened to the excess dough that I cut off from the cake layers, I made cake bonbons from it. We can talk about them next time if you like.
