Chocolate Marble Cake

Chocolate Marble Cake

Welcome back my friends, after a long gap. I am now in the middle of something.  So my blogging time has very much come down. Many of my dishes' picture sit idle in my camera. I don't know when they will see some light.  I had a couple of request from my  Facebook friends for the birthday cake's recipe which I posted on FB. This cake I made for my eldest son's 5th  Birthday. This time I was double-minded about baking a cake. Because his Birthday was on a weekday and I had to drop and pick him and my husband at school & office and besides he wanted his favorite "Pineapple Payasam" and as I told you before, I am in the middle of something. So my mind was like " To bake or not to bake". 

Many of my friends and family asked me which cake am I going to bake this time. And my neighbor was telling me that her kids started discussing the theme of this years Birthday cake that I am going to bake for the Bday party. And I told her this time it is  Baskin Robins Spiderman Ice cream cake and no baking on my part. But, On the Birthday morning he woke up, he sat on the bed and started recalling his last year's  Thomas Train birthday cake I made for him. My heart began to feel guilty. 

And I ended up baking this cake. This is an easy cake and I didn't spend time for frosting it, though I made a chocolate spread to pour over top of the cake. I began to scratch my brains for an easy theme that  I can make it last minute. Then I saw his ball lying down. " Eureka !!!". Coincidentally this year his school bag and his pajama day's pajama also was of this same theme. I made the birthday banner, Soccer ball and American football with fondant Icing and my son wanted to try his hands also in decoration. He made the 2 red balls and white ball with Fondant Icing.

Prep: 20 min
Baking time: 40-45 min

Ingredients:
1) All purpose flour (Maida) - 1 3/4 cups
2) Baking powder - 2 Tsp
3) Salt - 1/4 Tsp
4) Whole Milk Yogurt  - 2/3 cup
5) Whole Milk - 2 Tbsp
6) Vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp
7) Unsalted Butter ( At room temp) - 1 stick (8 tbsp)
8) Sugar - 3/4 cup
9) Eggs - 3 large ( At room temp)
10)Hershey's cocoa powder (or any  Unsweetened cocoa powder) - 1/4 cup
11) Instant coffee powder - 1 Tsp
12) Boiling water - 1/4 cup



Method:

• Pre-heat oven to 325 F. Butter a 9" cake pan. 
• In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt.
• In another bowl whisk yogurt, milk and vanilla extract.
• In a large bowl using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat well after each addition and scrape the sides. Reduce the speed to low. Add half of the flour mixture and then yogurt mixture, then remaining flour mixture. Beat well after each addition. Remove about 1 cup of batter ( 1/3 of batter) to a bowl.
• Pour 1/4 cup boiling water into a small bowl. Mix Cocoa and coffee powder until smooth. Cool it slightly. Stir it to the 'one cup' batter set aside.
• Alternate spoonful of vanilla and chocolate batters in the cake pan. Draw a knife through batters for the marbled effect. Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 40-45 min. Cool on wire rack.

For Chocolate Spread:
   1) Semi-sweet chocolate chips- 1/2 cup
   2)  Heavy Cream -1/4 cup

• Place Heavy cream in a microwavable bowl. Microwave until hot, about 20-25 sec. Melt chocolate chips either in a microwave or by double boiling. Add it to heavy cream and stir until smooth. Let it cool to warm room temp. (Icing should still be pourable. ) You can drizzle this over the cake if you desire and add some sprinkles. Let the cake stand until icing has set.

Source: All You Magazine