Lost Me Marbles

So, the Great British Bake Off is back on telly, filling my head with countless baking ideas and illusions of baking grandeur. A couple weeks back, one of the contestants baked a beautiful two-tiered marbled cake dolloped with truffles. Unable to shake this from my head, I thought I'd attempt a marble cake of my own.

Introducing:

Two-Tiered Marble Cake

Ingredients:

250ml Water (boiled)

55g Cocoa Powder

400g Plain Flour

2.5tsp Baking Powder

2.5tsp Baking Soda

Pinch-o-Salt

400g Sugar

200g Butter

4 Eggs

100g Cream Cheese

Directions:

In a small bowl, whisk together the water and cocoa powder until well incorporated. Set aside. (This will be used for your chocolate cake mixture.)

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder & soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a separate large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Add the eggs to the mixture one by one, then blend in the cream cheese.

Now mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until all is smooth. Separate the batter evenly into two separate bowls. One bowl will be used for the plain portion of the marble, the other will be used for the chocolate marble.

For the chocolate part of the marble, mix your cocoa powder & hot water concoction into the other half of the batter until well blended.

dark & light

Randomly dollop the two mixtures into a well-greased pan, making sure to alternate the chocolate and plain batters.

Next, do what I call the 'Pan Shimmy': gently & quickly shift the pan from side to side several times- this will make the batter sit evenly. Lastly, use a knife to drag a zig zag pattern through the batter up to 8 times.

Pop in the over at 180C for approx 50 minutes.

Get your marble on.

Decorate when fully cooled. I used chocolate buttercream and freshly picked blackberries between the layers.

Buttercream and Brambling

bon appétit

Until next time...

Hearts.