Cake, Desserts

Marble Cake

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Marble desserts are a fave of mine as they are delish and beautiful to see. This Marble Cake from the “Feast” cookbook by Nigella Lawson intrigued me as the batter has orange juice and zest in it. Orange and chocolate are a marvelous pairing in all forms. This may sound odd to you, but trust me, it’s just a fresh and lovely combo, especially in this cake.

My family is very anti icing, so this cake was perfect to make for them. I dusted with powdered sugar and served it with fresh fruit. It’s reallllllly good with ice cream, and I had whipped up a batch of homemade chocolate chip ice cream the week I made the cake so my son was a happy camper.

You can of course serve it with your fave from the store but for my homemade ice cream recipe, click here .

This cake is perfect with sliced fruit and berries.

My observations when putting this together include: Using a food processor to mix the batter felt a bit wild to me as I usually make batter the old-fashioned way – in a mixer. But it does come together really quickly using a food processor. My second in-conclusion was that I thought for sure I completely messed up the placement of batters in the cake pan as it makes an absolute chaotic batter mess. But, that’s the point and that’s how marbling works. LOL. It came out picture perfect. Whew.

Enjoy!

Marble Cake
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Marble Cake

Recipe by Nigella Lawson from FeastCourse: DessertCuisine: GermanDifficulty: Medium
Servings

20

servings
Prep time

25

minutes
Cooking time

35

minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 sticks soft unsalted butter

  • 1 1/4 cups superfine sugar

  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda

  • 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

  • 4 eggs

  • Zest of 1 orange, plus approximately 3 Tbsp. juice

  • 1 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa (or 2 Tbsp. if omitting the espresso powder listed below)

  • 1 tsp. espresso powder (optional)

  • 1 Tbsp. mlk

Directions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a ring mold 9 1/2 inches in diameter, with 5 cup capacity.
  • Put the butter, sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, eggs and zest of orange into a processor and blitz to a batter.
  • Pour the orange juice, with the motor running, down the funnel of the processor to make the cake mixture lighter and smoother.
  • Divide the batter between two bowls. Put the cocoa and espresso powder into a small bowl and whisk in the milk; fold this into one of the bowls of cake mixture to make it dark colored.
  • Spoon a splodge of light-colored cake batter into the pan and then a chocolate-colored spoonful working your way around the ring of the mold. Carry on with a second layer, but don’t worry if it is haphazard and not terribly even as this is the whole point of marbling. Once you have used up both batters, give the contents of the ring mold a swirl with a spatula to create the marble effect, and bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. (The Jersey Girl started checking her cake at 30 minutes as her oven bakes quickly. The cake was done at 32 minutes.)
  • Let it sit on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes before turning out to the rack to get completely cold.

    Please note: The Jersey Girl omitted the espresso powder, replacing it with 1 more Tablespoon of cocoa powder. She topped the cake with a dusting of powdered sugar and fruit and on occasion, ice cream, which is quite delicious.

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