Battenburg is a great example of this. Once you get over the colours, it's actually fairly simple to make (it's a simple 3-egg butter sponge, with half of it coloured pink, and then a bit of careful cutting, apricot jam, and some marzipan). making your own marzipan is both simple, and far, far nicer than shop-bought stuff (typically shop marzipan is 75% sugar, whereas home-made stuff is 50%).
I have a special battenburg tin, though you don't need one, it just saves a bit of cutting. As you want sharp edges, rather than line it with paper, I tend to grease and flour it, which gives cleaner results.