X
ProbableIndirect, via a person or title

Battenberg cake

noun · first attested late 19th century

The checkerboard cake is named for a small German town almost nobody visits.

A British sponge cake baked in pink and yellow squares, assembled into a checkerboard and wrapped in marzipan.

Battenberg·Germany

49.5331°N 8.1381°E · Q22966

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Record

Relationship
Indirect, via a person or title
Confidence
ProbableThe conventional story is likely, with caveats.
Attested
late 19th century
Part of speech
noun

Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.

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    Battenberg

  2. In English

    Battenberg cake

The entry

The usual account ties it to the 1884 marriage of a granddaughter of Queen Victoria to Prince Louis of Battenberg, whose title came from a town in Hesse. The family anglicized itself to Mountbatten during the First World War; the cake kept the German name.

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