Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cake

This weekend I decided to attempt a marble cake. I had convinced myself that this would be challenging, so I enlisted the help of my housemate Rhiannon.

I browsed the BBC Good Food website and found a chocolate marble cake recipe posted by Emma Lewis.

I decided to choose a marble cake which didn’t look too crazy, so the chocolate and vanilla marble was perfect.

The Recipe

 Ingredients

 225g butter, softened

225g cater sugar

4 eggs

225 self-raising flour

3 tbsp milk

1tsp vanilla extract

2tbsp cocoa powder

Method

 1) Heat oven to 180C. Grease a 20cm cake tin and line the bottom with a circle of greaseproof paper or grease thoroughly.

2) You could put all the ingredients (except the cocoa powder) into a food processor and whizz for 1-2 minutes until smooth or if you want to hand mix, cream the butter and the sugar, then add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Fold through the flour, milk and vanilla extract until the mixture is smooth.

 3) Divide the mixture between 2 bowls.

4) Stir the cocoa powder into the mixture in one of the bowls.

5) Take 2 spoons and use them to dollop the chocolate and vanilla cake mixes into the tin alternately. When all the mixture has been used up tap the bottom on your work surface to ensure that there aren’t any air bubbles.

6) Take a skewer and swirl it around the mixture in the tin a few times to create a marbled effect.

 7) Bake the cake for 45-55 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Turn out onto a cooling rack and leave to cool.

My Cake

Despite my reservations, the cake was actually extremely straightforward to make.

I don’t have a food processor, so creaming the butter and the sugar took a little longer than normal.

Creating the marble effect was much simpler than I had imagined and I had great fun dolloping the various mixtures.

This recipe would be perfect for baking with children, as the dolloping is a good source of creative interaction. Also, when I licked the bowl I was reminded of many happy childhood baking sessions with my mum.

The cake, on the whole, was of a perfect consistency and the sponge was nice and moist.

The outside of the cake coloured too quickly in the oven. I blame my new oven. As a result I had to cover it with some foil.

It was a little darker around the edges than I would have desired but otherwise it turned out magnificently. My five housemates all thoroughly enjoyed it.

Acknowledgements

 Thank you to Emma Lewis for providing me with the recipe.