Successful women and the food that represents them

If you were a food, what would you be? We take three female personalities and make dishes that embody them to a tee.

Joy division

These days, we don’t tidy up our homes anymore, we Marie Kondo them. The decluttering guru who literally wrote the book on the subject – The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering And Organizing –has millions of fans all considering which of their belongings to keep or discard by answering the question, “Does it spark joy?“

Kondo apparently applies the same attention and simplicity in organising and cleaning to her cooking – she told TODAY Food ,“If time allows, it does spark joy when my food is arranged in a pretty way.”

The recipe: storage boxes and cubbies are indispensable in the KonMari method, and they have inspired our cake here. It’s based on the traditional British Battenberg (also spelled Battenburg) cake, which is assembled with two colours of sponge, sandwiched together in a chequered pattern with apricot jam and covered in marzipan.

Now, almond paste is not everyone’s cup of tea, so we went with a vanilla butter-cream cheese icing instead. however, the cakes are flavoured: the green one with edamame beans and the white with haw flakes – the thin dark pink sweet and sour candy wafers that are a favourite of many.

The pattern should have perfect straight edges but as you can see, our cake is a little wonky. It still sparks joy.

EDAMAME-HAW FLAKES CHEQUERED CAKE

Serves 6-8

110g butter, softened 110g caster sugar

110g (2 medium) eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract 110g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder pinch of salt

1 tbsp milk

200g fresh edamame in pods 30g haw flakes, cut into strips

Butter-cream cheese icing

75g unsalted butter, soft but still cold 50g cream cheese, soft

285g icing sugar, sifted

2-3 tbsp milk 3/4 tsp vanilla extract Grease and line two 20cm by 10cm loaf

tins. Pre-heat oven to 170°c.

Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. sift the flour, baking powder and salt together directly into the batter and fold in. The batter should have a soft dropping consistency. If it is too firm, add a little milk. Divide the mixture equally between two bowls.

To make edamame purée, steam edamame bean pods until soft. shell them and remove the skin from the beans. Place beans in a blender with about 1/2 tbsp of water and pulse until smooth.

For the edamame cake, add about 1/4 of the batter to the puréed edamame to loosen it, then combine with the rest of the batter. scoop into one of the tins. Level the top with a spatula.

To the other portion of batter, fold in the strips of haw flakes. scoop into the other tin. Level the top with a spatula.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until springy and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool cakes on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from tins and cool completely.

Make the icing

With a stand mixer or electric hand whisk, beat the butter and cream cheese until light, pale and puffy, about 5 minutes. Add half the icing sugar and beat in until well incorporated. Beat in the remaining sugar. The icing should be soft and fluffy but hold its shape. If it is too firm, add a little milk. Fold in the vanilla extract. Use as soon as possible.

Assemble the cake

Trim the edges of the cakes and cut each one in the centre along the length, ending up with four logs. sandwich two different coloured logs next to each other with the icing. spread more icing on top. sandwich the other two logs but with the colours the other way around and place on top of the first pair in a chequered pattern. Crumb coat the whole cake with the icing. Chill in the refrigerator for an hour, then spread icing all over.