Skip to main content

Come to the Dark Side - Chocolate Chip Marble Cake

 

While I definitely hold the view that there can never be too many cupcakes in this world, this blog seems to be developing a cupcake habit (not that I'm particularly sorry for that). However, as the aim is to develop my baking, I thought I'd better turn my attention away from cupcakes, at least for a while.This Chocolate Chip Marble Cake fitted the bill perfectly. 


I found this gorgeous recipe on the lovely blog Piece of Cake by Shauna Once again, though, it marks the return of chocolate to my baking - sense another theme here? I've wanted to try marbling for a while, and the layer of fudgy, brownie-type chocolate running through the centre of this cake really got my mouth salivating. The recipe also marked me trying out a bundt - or ring - cake for the first time.


This cake is just lovely, and the smell generated in the house while it was baking was swoon-inducing. It even managed to get the boys out of their rooms and away from their X-boxes, so it must be good, right? Well, it is. Intensely chocolately in the dark layer, it tasted fantastic.

As this is an American recipe, I have played around with the quantities where I thought it was necessary  and tried to include measurements - for example on butter and flour etc. These are approximations based on the weight of the ingredients after I measured them out using cups.

The recipe includes the use of light corn syrup - this is becoming more widely available in the UK (I can buy it off the shelf at Wally's Deli or Howell's in Cardiff and you can get it on line). If you can't track any down, apparently you can substitute golden syrup.

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups caster sugar (1lb 4oz or 565g)
1/2 cup cocoa (2oz or 56g)
1/4 cup light corn syrup
2 1/2 tspns vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups plain flour (10 1/2 oz or 390g)
2 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn salt
1 cup unsalted softened butter (8oz or 225g)
4 large (US size) eggs
  • Note: US large size is between 57-64g, so is more equivalent to our medium sized eggs - I weighed mine, and used 4 eggs each around the 60g mark
1 cup milk at room temperature (8floz or 237ml)
1 cup chocolate chips (about 6oz or 180g)
  • Note: I used plain chocolate chips, Bouchard, which are about 55%


Preheat the oven to 155 fan / 175 conventional / Gas 4. Lightly grease and flour a 23cm (9") ringed cake tin.

Put 1/2 cup (4oz or 113g) of the sugar in a small saucepan with the cocoa, corn (or golden) syprup and 1/2 cup (4floz or 118ml) of hot water and whisk until mixed. Place over a low heat and bring to a simmer. Immediately remove from the heat, whisk in 1/2 tspn of the vanilla, and leave aside. You'll have a gorgeous chocolately syrup.


Place the flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl and whisk to mix and aerate.

Cream the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until each is incorporated. Add the remaining vanilla.


Add in a third of the flour, and then half the milk. Continue like this until all added. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Place a third of the cake batter into a mixing bowl (I weighed mine to do this. I had 1648g of batter in total, so separated 550g into a bowl.) Add the cooled chocolate syrup to this third, and mix well. 

Pour a third of the vanilla batter into your cake tin.


Carefully pour the chocolate batter over this.


Finally, pour the remaining vanilla batter over the top. You can see that I did not have quite enough to cover the chocolate totally, but as it's going to be marbled, it's not a problem.


Carefully swirl a knife through the batter so that you end up with a marbled effect.


Bake until a skewer comes out clean (approx 75 minutes for me, but I started checking after 60 minutes).

Cool the cake in a pan on a wire rack. Invert onto a serving plate. You can, as shown above, sprinkle with a little icing sugar.


If you can resist temptation, leave the texture and flavour to develop for a couple of hours before diving in. It's well worth the wait!

Susie

Comments

  1. This looks so good, the chocolatey syrup in particular! I've only made marble cake in cupcake form but it's so much fun to do. I really need to try it in cake form.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It really is a lovely tasting cake. I'd never tried making one before. Just wondering now why I left it so long :)

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. Mmmm, lots of chocolatey goodness. Glad you like it :-)

      Delete
  3. This looks great! Just found your blog through your comment on the Foodies 100 'Do you need blog comments' post. Looking forward to reading more of your blog!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank's B, that's great to hear (but I s'pose a bit ironic given the subject of the Foodies 100 post). Anyway, I'm glad you like it. I've really enjoyed doing the blog and there are so many new things I can't wait to try out! Hope you enjoy them, :)

      Delete
  4. What a beauty! So chocolatey and delightful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Angie! The cake is now definitely a firm favourite and the boys have requested I make it 'at least once a month'! They even fought over the last piece! Always a sign of something good in our house. :)

      Delete
  5. Wow, what a fantastic looking cake. Love the look of marble cakes, but it's also the depth and shape of yours that makes it look so good. I've been looking for a silicone ring mould for ages but with no luck, I just really like the look of round cakes with a whole in the middle.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Choclette, and thanks for your comment. I loved the way the cake sliced due to the ring shape, and the fudgy chocolate layer was studded with the chocolate chips, too. I think the depth really helped achieve the texture as you could do the layers. I'll certainly be doing this again and trying out some other ring cakes. :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Your comments are very much appreciated.

Popular posts from this blog

Dark Indulgent Chocolate and Walnut Brownies for the Weekly Bake Off

It's been a great couple of weeks in the Bake Off , as Amy has chosen some fantastic chocolate recipes from Mary Berry's 100 Cakes and Bakes . Although I made last week's American Chocolate Ripple Cheesecake, I didn't enter it. Not because it was a disaster (it was incredibly delicious though very rich - Josh has been able to eek it out all week as he only needs a little piece to get his daily chocolate fix!), but I simply ran out of time. So this week, I decided to get my skates on and make the bake early. Particularly as it's brownies. Yes. Brownies. Those dark, fudgey, chocolatey little bites of heaven. But for me, this week was an experiment. You see, I already have a fantastic brownie recipe . It's been made countless times and been played around with to give an endless variety of treats. (Have I ever mentioned Maya Gold in brownies? Yes? Well I'll have to post about them someday soon because they are amazing - like some sort of out of body exp

Limoncello Cake

I really love this cake. I mean really love it. So much so, it's my new best friend. It's like sunshine on a plate. The citrussy aroma tempts you while the sultry lemony pucker hits you full in the mouth. And who can resist anything with 'Limoncello' in the title? The mere mention of the word transports you to to the Sicilian sun. It's one more reason I have to thank Random Recipes for getting me to delve into my cookbooks. This month's challenge had a bit of a twist. Dom, of Belleau Kitchen (who runs the challenge) created a Randometer thingummy-bob to test us. You had to enter how many cookbooks you owned, and then it would generate a random number. You counted along your shelf to that book, and then entered the number of pages, to generate another number and so find your Random Recipe. The gods must have been looking favourably on me this month, as I ended up with this gorgeous lemon cake, from Peggy Porschen's 'Boutique Baking

Pistachio and Lemon Cake (with a helping of news on the side)

Gosh, where has the time gone? So how've you been? Good I hope. Great stuff. And Me? Not so much. But getting there. I've been away a while, I know. Lots of things happening. Some not, but hey, that's life. Since we last spoke, I've left my job of 19 years (health reasons), and that seems scary. Mike's job was victim to a reorganisation, so that gave him the opportunity to take redundancy. That seems scary, too. As they say, timing is everything. So in a burst of mid-life shenanigans, we've decided to start our own business. A coffee shop. With a bakery - cakery attached. O. M. G. That seems very freakin' scary! But exciting, too. Hopefully soon, we'll be taking on the lease of a small shop near us. Fitting it out, and then opening our doors to entice hungry shoppers with the delicious smell of good coffee and freshly baked cakes. It's going to be a lot of hard work. I can't wait. But I have to. The legalities, yo