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Marble cake is the perfect combination of vanilla and chocolate. It has a special place in my heart as it was one of my grandad's favourites, and I don’t bake it nearly often enough. I wanted to bake this marble cake as a way to test my icing skills, but more about that later!
The Sponge
Like all loaf cakes, the sponge for this one follows a 1:1:1 ratio for the ingredients. I make all the mixture in one bowl at first, and then split it into two before adding the flavourings to each one. You can absolutely do it in separate bowls from the start, but I just find that tends to result in more washing up, which for me is a big no-no!
I weigh my batter when I split it in half just to make sure I’m getting a similar amount of both flavours, but it doesn’t have to be too exact.
The Frosting
Baking this cake was my first attempt at doing two tone frosting and I must say, it went really well! I made both of my icing batches separately and flavoured them, then made two strips next to each other on a piece of cling film. I rolled it up into a sausage shape, cut the end off and piped using a star-shaped tip.
Method:
Preheat your oven to 160c fan
Cream 250g of your unsalted butter and your caster sugar together until fluffy and slightly lighter in colour.
Add your flour and eggs and mix until all the ingredients are combined. I usually do this step by hand to prevent over-mixing
Spit your mixture evenly between two bowls. Add half your vanilla extract to one and 25g of cocoa powder to the other.
Add both of your bowls of mixture to your loaf tin randomly. You can also run a toothpick through it when you've added it all to really increase the marble effect.
Put your loaf in the oven on the middle shelf and leave to bake for 55-60 minutes. I recommend checking from 50 minutes on in case your oven runs a little hotter than mine.
Remove your cake from the oven and leave it to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes then place it on a cooling rack.
Whilst your cake is cooling, mix your remaining butter with an electric whisk until it's slightly lighter in colour.
Add your icing sugar in small increments until it has a smooth buttercream texture.
Split your buttercream between two bowls, add your remaining vanilla extract to one and cocoa powder to the other. You may want to add a few drops of milk to your chocolate buttercream just to thin it out slightly.
Place a piece of cling film on your surface and spoon your icing into two lines, one of each flavour.
Roll up your frosting into a sausage shape, cut off the end of the cling film and add it to your piping bag.
Pipe your buttercream across the top of your loaf cake in any pattern you like.
Melt down your white chocolate and drizzle this over your frosting and you're done!
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