A marbled cake of sorts

Being this the first anniversary of this blog, I must repeat that it has been a team effort, mostly. I'm the one taking the pictures, doing the editing, styling and writing the posts, but some of the food that graces this blog has been made by my husband - perhaps even most of the food. It is as much his doig as it is mine. He makes breads of all kind, I'm the cornbread baker. He does lasagnas and pizzas, and cooks duck and deer to perfection, I stick to the everyday dinner, getting inventive on those weekdays when I am alone in the kitchen and can give proper vent to my culinary misdemeanors. It is but a team work, in the end, with even our kid pitching in as my assistant in certain shoots - and does he love doing that.

Thus said, this marble cake was my husband's doing, and it's one recipe he excells at, and the one where he has gotten most creative over the years. As I write this I sit in regret for not having photographed the time he baked this cake as a vanilla raspberry marble cake, or the version that was chocolate and hazelnut, which saw its graces sung by plenty of people, or even the almond blackberry one that looked so pretty, almost as pretty as the vanilla raspeberry swirls. This one is yet another version of it, the coconut chocolate marbled cake.

The first time he baked this cake was in its plain version of vanilla chocolate marble cake. I think it was for one of our boy's birthdays, or else it was for some sort of celebration. This must have been about five years ago, as we got the basic recipe from a Waitrose Spring Cookbook 2010 my sister brought over on one of her visits from London, where she lives (how I miss her bringing me these cookbooks, they have been such an inspiration over the years, in every sense!). So I will just post down this basic recipe, and entice you to try and make your own combinations, and come up with creative flavours to mix into the batters. Do tag me if you happen to cook a marbled cake and posta picture somewhere!

You will need:

• 150 gr dark chocolate for cooking, broken into pieces
• 225 gr butter softened and cut into cubes
• 225 gr caster sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 225 gr self raising flour or plain flour with 2 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 180º. Generously butter and flour a cake tin and tap out he excess flour. Melt the chocolate in a bain marie and once it has melted, remove and let cool slightly. Cream the sugar and butter untill they're fluffy and pale and then beat in the eggs one at a time. Sieve in the flour, folding gently to combine - you do not want to beat the batter at this stage. Spoon half of the cake mix into a clean bowl, add the vanilla extract, mixing well, and reserve. Pour in the melted chocolate to the rest of the batter and stir gently until combined. Now you start assembling your cake. To do this, just spoon heaped tablespoons of batter alternating between the dark and the light mix into the cake tin, then, usink a skewer, you start stirring and swirling the two together to achieve a marbled effect. Bake in the preheated oven for about 30-35 minutes, et voilá, marbled cake done and ready to savour!! And if yu really want to get creative, you can go and decorate the cake anyway you like, I'm thinking a chocolate ganache cover and some bonbons scatter over the top! For this post I really wanted it simple, so you could see the swirling beauty of it, but please, do go crazy!