Mocha Marble Cake

It appears as though there has been a veritable dearth of dessert-centric recipes added to this blog in the past month. Though it is true that my taste for the savoury is far more prevalent than my sweet tooth, such an oversight shouldn’t go unchecked for too long. After all, the food blogging community appears to be primarily composed of the fairer sex and we all know how much you lot enjoy a jolly good cake or cookie – not that you or I would usually admit to such a slanderous remark being founded in truth. Anyway, it is clearly my place to apologies for my collective gender for the lack of frugal desserts – I’m truly sorry.

Marble cake is either an inspired and exciting invention, or it is a pointless foray into the clutches of gastronomic vanity. The effect produced by marbling is undoubtedly visually appealing, but the main consideration when baking should be the taste of what has been produced. Since this is supposed to be a mocha cake, shouldn’t every aspect of it taste of both chocolate and coffee? As it stands only two-thirds of the cake can claim to be part of any mocha-flavoured treaty and there is no guarantee that each mouthful consumed will taste of what it is supposed to. It appears as though my own personal jury is out on this one chaps, particularly since the cake in question does have a truly remarkable taste. Perhaps the ultimate answer lies in the icing of the cake, it does, after all, have the inimitable ability to stitch all of the collective flavours together in a pseudo-blanket of mocha-flavoured bliss.

Mocha Marble Cake

Makes one 18” cake

Ingredients:

For the sponge –

• 2 eggs

• 170g caster sugar

• 170g butter or margarine

• 220g plain flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 2 tsp golden syrup

• 3 tbsp greek yoghurt

• 2 tsp instant coffee granules or powder

• 1 tsp dark cocoa powder

• 1 tsp vanilla essence

For the icing –

• 200g cream cheese

• 2 tbsp icing sugar

• 30g dark chocolate, melted

• 4 tsp instant coffee granules or powder

• 30g butter, softened

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C and grease an 18cm cake tin. Cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until fully incorporated. Stir in the golden syrup and 2 tbsp of the yoghurt. Mix together the flour and the baking powder and sift gently into the mixture, fold until just incorporated.

2. Separate the basic mixture into 3 equal amounts. Add the vanilla essence to one; the cocoa powder and 1 more tbsp. of yoghurt to another; and the coffee powder to the last. Dollop this into the bottom of the cake tin, alternating the flavours to give a marble effect. Smooth the top and bake for 55 mins to an hour.

3. Once the cake has been left to cool and has been turned out make the icing by beating together all of the ingredients listed above – it should have a mousse-like consistency. Decorate as you wish, it may be a little coffee speckled but don’t worry about that. Keep refrigerated.

Cost: Most cakes made at home turn out to be fairly reasonably priced, especially considering they are ridiculously overpriced elsewhere. This cake, in particular, will set one back around £1.60. In other words, this cake is a bargain.