Back to old-time Marble Cake

I mentioned in my First Cupcake Venture post that I'm gonna do a few basic butter cakes to practise the creaming method since I really wanted to have a good baking foundation in case at any time, I need to venture on some "special baking projects". hehe.... anyway it's essential to have a good base, and I would recommend anyone who wanted to start cake baking to start off with butter cakes first, which in my opinion is the easiest and most basic to start off with.
I am now a subscriber of "Food & Travel" Magazine, after years of reading CLEO. I find myself shifting my interest towards the food and travel arena. Even though I don't really try out most of the recipes, I enjoy enriching myself with more knowledge of food, recipes, food preparation, etc or just oogling at the yummy dishes! I'm glad I have a hobby, and knowing for certain what I enjoy doing :)

This marble cake is featured in its Jun 09 Issue of 'fondmemories' theme. It features a good number of the good'o days recipes such as this marble cake, steamed chinese sponge cake (ji dan gao), kueh bingka ubi kaya (baked tapioca cake) and sugee cake which you can only get to some of them in traditional bakeries.

This recipes uses evaporated milk, as fresh milk was not readily available in the olden days, rendering a moist and flavourful butter cake. The main purpose of the marbled effect here is not to create a distinct two-toned cocoa and vanilla flavour but rather to produce pretty light swirls of cocoa and pink marble design. I'm sure mothers, fathers and grandmas or grandpa will love this cake, provided they do not have to watch out their cholestrol level. :P Marble Cake


Ingredients:

170g butter
180g caster sugar
4 eggs
200g self-raising flour
55g milk powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup evaporated milk

1 tsp cocoa powder
pink food colouring

for the rich butter cream frosting (optional)

100g icing sugar
2 egg yolks
125g butter
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
wafer roses

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Grease and line a 19-cm square cake pan.
2. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until it becomes light and fluffy.
3. Crack eggs, one at a time, into the butter mixture and beat well until well incorporated.
4. Add essence. Mix in until well blended.
5. Sift flour together with milk powder.
6. Fold in flour alternately with evaporated milk into butter mixture until well blended.
7. Pour batter into cake pan, reserving 1 cup of batter.
8. Divide the remaining batter into two portions. Add a few drops of pink colouring into one portion and 1 tsp cocoa in the other. Mix until well blended.
9. Spoon the cocoa-flavoured portion on top of batter. Use a cake skewer to run it through batter to create swirls. Do the same with pink-coloured batter.
10. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until cake is cooked.
11. To test, insert a satay stick into the centre of the cake. When it comes out clean, cake is cooked. If not, return to oven and continue baking until done.
12. When cake is cooled, coat with rich butter cream (just mix all the ingedients and beat until well blended). (optional)

Recipe Source: Food & Travel - Jun 2009 Issue (Pg 48)