Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Loaf

It seems like ages since I last did an entry for the Weekly Bake Off challenge. I think this is because I've been quite busy lately and haven't had the chance to get the ingredients in time for each challenge. This time I made a determined effort to have a go. I've also entered this cake into Ros and Caroline's monthly Alphabakes challenge this month hosted by Ros from the More Than Occaisonal Baker blog, because the letter is 'V' and of course this cake contains vanilla. I wanted to do something a bit more adventurous than using vanilla but I'm killing 2 birds with one stone by entering this cake into both challenges which is always a good thing.

This was a wonderfully easy cake to make. The recipe is from Mary Berry's 100 Cakes and Bakes book and it is basic sponge recipe made using the all in one method and then the batter is divided in half and cocoa is added to the other half of the mixture. Mary's method was to mix the cocoa with some hot water to make a paste before stirring it into the batter. This is not something I've tried before but it seemed to work well. I then dolloped the 2 mixtures  somewhat randomly into a lined 2lb loaf tin and baked for just over an hour. I wasn't sure how this would turn out in my new fan oven as I was also baking another cake at the same time. Luckily the cake rose well and was wonderfully light and moist. The lightness was probably helped by the additional 2tsp of baking powder, I was surprised by this as the recipe already uses self raising flour. I think I got a reasonably good marbling effect on the top of the cake although this was later covered by the icing. 

 

The method for making the icing seemed a little unusual to me. The butter had to be melted in a saucepan and mixed with cocoa powder and cooked briefly before stirring in milk and icing sugar. My icing took a long time to cool down and set. I think this is because I used 2 tbsp milk and the recipe said to use 1-2 tbsp and I also didn't use real butter. I nearly always use margarine for baking except for special occasions simply because it's cheaper and cakes and icing usually turn out just as nice as when I use real butter. This icing ended up being a little bit grainy so I think next I make this I'll either make a chocolate ganache or chocolate buttercream to go on top.

 Some of the icing ran down the sides of the cake so I put in the fridge to set and then scraped up the icing that had fallen onto the plate and spread it back on top of the cake. I then had to put the cake on a clean plate so I could get some good photos. I also melted some white chocolate and drizzled it on top in a slightly cack handed attempt at some swirls. One day I'll get the hang of piping properly but I'm still pretty proud of my effort here.