Chocolate Orange Marble Cake

It was a busy Sunday. I hadn't baked a cake in ages and although I have a box of raisins and figs soaking up some rum, I haven't gotten around to baking my fruit cake. But it was the birthday of my dear friend, P, and I couldn't think of anything better than a home made cake. I found the idea for this lovely cake in a cook called "Everyday Chocolate" by Parragon Publishing. I modified my existing cake recipe to suit this cake. I haven't become very comfortable with the grams and ounces measurements yet and prefer using the standard cup measure.

For the Orange Portion:

1 cup Flour
2 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4cup Oil
1egg
1/4 cup Milk

1/4 cup Orange Juice
1/2 tsp Orange Essence
1 tsp Grated Orange Rind



For the Chocolate Portion:

3/4 cup Flour
1/6 cup Cocoa
2 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 cup Oil
1 egg
1/2 cup Milk
1/2 tsp Vanilla



Butter and flour for dusting



For the decoration:

300g Icing Sugar

12 tsp Orange Juice, filtered

2 drops Orange Food Colouring

Chocolate Sprinkles

Sift all the dry ingredients for the each cake separately into a food processor jar with the dough blade. Pour in all the liquid ingredients and run the processor for 2 minutes. Prepare two 8 inch round cake tins by first smearing a little butter all over the tin and then dusting it with flour.

Place spoonfuls of each batter alternately in the pans. Swirl the batter using a knife or skewer to create a marble effect.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 F. The cakes are done when a knife or skewer inserted into them comes out clean. Remove the cakes to a cake rack and cool completely.

Prepare the icing by whisking the icing sugar along with the orange juice and the food colouring to a running consistency. Pour over the cooled cakes and sprinkle with chocolate sprinkles.

I am not a big fan of orange flavoured chocolates, but these two flavours gelled pretty well in this cake and I was rather surprised. We enjoyed small pieces of the cake and P took the rest of it to a family get together where, according to her, it was relished and gone in no time. My cousin P and her husband S completed 6 years of married life yesterday as well. This is a small cake for them too.

I am sending this to the JFI - Chocolate hosted by Deepz.

I hope that during this time of the year when it is not at all bad to spend time in the kitchen (the temperature being 4 degrees C and our houses having no central heating), I will be baking more and trying out newer stuff. I need your continued support.

I am still unable to view many blogs on blogger. I have two blogs. I am able to view one but not this one. I am able to read several blogs through Google Reader, but am unable to comment. So, do bear with me.