Marble Cake (Eggless)

its been ages since i last baked anything and i have been trying to get back my touch. its not been easy – for one, i’m now living in Chennai (India), where finding good quality baking products is proving to be a challenge. i miss the days in Singapore when the NTUC/Cold Storage was just a bus ride away, and i could choose from aisles devoted to baking goods. the other issue is that after a long break, it is easy to get put off by failures. just the other day, i tried making a carrot cake, but it didn’t turn out well – it looked fantastic, but didn’t taste as good 😦

but i told myself that only meant that i got to keep trying till i get it right! 🙂 until i sort out the carrot cake recipe, i decided to try my hand at something i have been meaning to do for ages – marble cake. moist, dense and slightly sweet, this cake is one of my favourites, and i love it to pair it with a cup of coffee or tea. and it doesn’t take a lot of effort to make one. i came across a couple of recipes for marble cake online, and since i had most of the ingredients for the eggless version, i decided to give it a try. this recipe is from The Chef And Her Kitchen – and i must say it is a winner! 🙂 i have listed the recipe and some notes below. get down to making some right away! 🙂

Ingredients:
1 – 1/4 cups Plain/All purpose flour
3 tbsp Milk powder (*substitute with 3 tbsp condensed milk if you don’t have milk powder)
1/2 cup Butter (*i used about 120 gms)
3/4 cup Powdered sugar (*i used regular granulated sugar)
3/4 cup Milk
2 tbsp Cocoa powder
2 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
2 tsp Vanilla essence (*i added extra 1 tsp from the original recipe)
2 tbsp Hot water

Making The Marble Cake:

Preheat your oven to 170.deg.C. Grease and flour a 7-inch round/square/loaf or bundt tin. Sift together the flour, milk powder, baking powder and baking soda two or three times. Mix the cocoa powder with hot water into a smooth paste and keep aside. Cream the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy – if you are using granulated sugar, this will take a while, but you have to cream the mixture really well. Add 1 tsp of vanilla essence and mix well. Add half the flour mix and half the milk to the mixture and beat well. Add the remaining milk (if you’re using condensed milk instead of milk powder, add that in as well) and beat. Lastly, add the remaining flour and beat until you get a thick, smooth batter. Separate one-third of the batter, add the cocoa paste to it and mix well. Add 1 tsp of vanilla essence to the white batter and mix well. Take the prepared tin and drop in spoonfuls of the two batters. You could do it in layers – white first and then brown, or just drop them around randomly. Use a knife or any sharp, pointy object and swirl the batter to create the marbled effect. (I overdid the swirling a bit, so the marble effect is not as good!) Bake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick/skewer inserted comes out clean. Take out and cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then turn the cake out on a cooling rack. Cool completely – this is very important. While you may be tempted to steal a tiny slice, remember that dense cakes like these take a long time to cool. Slicing it when it’s still warm could cause your cake to break or crumble. When the cake is completely cool, slice and indulge! 🙂