Marble cake

A marble cake is a cake with a streaked or mottled appearance (like marble) achieved by very lightly blending light and dark batter. It can be a mixture of vanilla and chocolate cake, in which case it is mainly vanilla, with streaks of chocolate. Other possibilities are strawberry or other fruit flavors, or (particularly in marbled coffee cakes) cinnamon and/or other spices.

The first print references to marble cake begin appearing in the last quarter of the 19th century. One popular variation of this recipe during Victorian times was “Harlequin cake", which was baked with checkerboard patterns. Early recipes used molasses and spices to achieve the dark-colored batter.

Ingredients

- 2 cups Flour
- 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/3 cup Unsalted Butter
- 1 cup Granulated Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 1 cup Milk
- 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa dissolved in 2 tbsp of boiling water.

Directions

- Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together.
- Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk and vanilla.
- Divide the dough in two parts. Add the dissolved cocoa to one of the parts, mix well.
- Butter and flour a 8 inches pan.
- Spread batter in prepared pan.
- Bake 50 to 55 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
- Cool cake in pan on wire racks 15 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely.