Marble Cake

I've been craving for marble cake these past weeks.... Since I had not tried any new marble cake recipe for some time, this would be a good time to try one. So on Thursday night, I quickly whipped up the mixture & managed to finish baking this classic cake before midnight.

I'm really happy how the cake turned out. My experience with baking marble cakes has not always had a happy ending, especially when it comes to the marble effect. I actually cut this cake just 10 minutes after it was out of the oven as I couldn't wait to see if I had succeeded this time. 

Besides the marble effect, I also like the texture and the flavour of this cake. It is moist, moderately dense with fine crumbs. It is not too sweet, so there's no need to reduce the sugar. The chocolate flavour is also quite intense even though it only makes up one third of the cake....it must be the Valrhona cocoa. So overall, this is a great recipe. You should try it and see if you like it.

Marble Cake

Ingredients:
250g butter or margerin or a combination of both, at room temperature (I used unsalted butter only.)
200g caster sugar
4 whole medium eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
225g plain flour (I used cake flour.)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (I used 3/4 tsp.)
50 ml fresh milk (room temperature)
2 tbsp cocoa powder (I used Valrhona.), mixed with about 2-3  tbsp boiling water to form a paste. Set aside to cool.
powder sugar for dusting on cake (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 180 deg C. Line & grease a 22x10x10 cm loaf pan.
2. Combine flour & baking powder, sift & set aside.
3. Whip butter & sugar until pale & creamy.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, & beat until just combined.
5. Fold in flour in 3 parts, alternating each part with milk.
6. Scoop out about 1/3 of batter into another bowl & add in cocoa paste. Mix well. Leave the remaining batter plain.
7. Drop spoonfuls of plain batter into the pan. Then drop the chocolate batter on the plain batter. Continue doing this until finish. (I poured 2-3 parts plain & 1 part chocolate.) When all the mixture has been used up, tap the bottom on your work surface to ensure that there aren’t any air bubbles. Take a skewer or knife & swirl it around the mixture a few times to create a marbled effect. Bake at 180 deg C for the first 20 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 160 deg C and continue baking for about 25 to 40 minutes or until skewer inserted in the center of cake comes out clean. Remove from pan & leave to cool.
8. Dust cake with powder sugar, if using, & slice to serve.

Source: rickeindriani_ordinarykitchen Instagram (with slight modifications to method)