RECIPE: Chocolate chip marble cake

All my exams and essays are finally over (hoorah!), so what's the first thing I do? Bake, obvs. I'd been genuinely craving getting my bake on for so long, but hadn't let myself as I knew I would feel far too guilty for not working. This afternoon, however, I commandeered the kitchen in a flurry of flour and let my inner baking addict out.

It just so happened that two of my housemates' birthdays were in the Christmas holidays, so I hadn't been able to bake them a cake each. Very sad indeed. What a perfect opportunity to make some belated birthday cakes then!

My housemate Alex's favourite cake is a classic Victoria sponge (a good choice, I'm sure you'll agree), so that's what I made for her. But for Sian, I decided to do something a little more exciting, and came up with this recipe for chocolate chip marble cake.

It was really simple to make alongside the Victoria sponge, as the base mixture is the same. Seeing as I only had two 20cm sandwich tins, I made two smaller cakes (one of each flavour), but you could easily double this recipe and sandwich two layers together.

Marble cakes always look really impressive when you cut into them - who doesn't love a reaction of "oooh" as the first slice is taken? - and are great if you're not sure whether you want a plain sponge or chocolate cake. I added chocolate chunks for extra jazziness.

Thanks to Cadbury's Philadelphia (which I'd been a little bit sceptical to try), the icing is really quick and easy too. According to one of my housemates, "The icing really makes it." Always good to know. I must say this cake has gone down a treat with everyone who's had a piece, and judging by how quickly it's disappeared, is something of a winner.

As always, don't forget to get your butter and eggs to room temperature beforehand!

pre-icing

Ingredients

100g caster sugar
100g butter, softened
2 eggs, beaten
100g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
50g milk chocolate (chips or cut into little chunks)
1 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
1 160g tub Cadbury's Philadelphia
1 tbsp (ish) icing sugar
1 mini Flake bar

Before crumbling the Flake on top

Method


1. Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 170C/gas 5. Grease and line a round 20cm sandwich tin.

2. In a large bowl, beat the sugar, butter, eggs, flour, baking powder and vanilla together using a handheld electric mixer until you have a smooth, soft batter. Stir in the chocolate chips.

3. Using a tablespoon, drop about half the mixture into the tin in large blobs (about four or five). Sieve the cocoa powder into the remaining cake mix, and stir in until smooth. Drop the chocolate mix into the tin in the gaps around the vanilla mix, and then use a skewer or a spoon to swirl the two mixtures together a bit. Don't overdo it though, as you don't want them mixed together.

pre-baking

4. Bake for about 25 mins until golden, shrinking away from the sides, a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed - I know, plenty of ways to check it's ready. Go round the sides of a tin with a knife, leave to cool in the tin for about ten minutes before turning on to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. For the icing, simply use an electric whisk to beat the chocolate philly with a little bit of icing sugar until it is light and creamy - to make it thicker, just add more icing sugar. When the cake is completely cool, cover with the icing and top with the crumbled flake bar. Yum.

And shortly after they were baked, this was all that was left. #hungrystudents