Marbles...

I'm off kayaking this weekend, and I thought I'd try to ingratiate myself in advance to the people who will probably end up spending large chunks of their weekend pulling me out of the river. And what better way than by baking cake? It's got to be quick and easy though, so I've gone for a marble cake, taking the recipe out of The Baker.

Marble Cake

Ingredients

• 185g Butter
• 230g Caster sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 1tsp Vanilla extract
• 280g Plain flour
• 3tsp Baking powder
• 185ml Milk
• 2tbsp Cocoa powder

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together.
2. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
3. Fold in the flour, baking powder and milk, alternating additions of dry ingredients with the milk.
4. Divide the batter in two. Beat the cocoa powder in a bowl with a little milk to form a paste and add to half of the batter, combining thoroughly.
5. Spoon the batter into a greased 1lb loaf tin, alternating spoonfuls of light and dark batter.
6. Draw a skewer through the batter a few times to create the marbling.
7. Bake at 180C for 40-60 minutes until cooked through.

Here's the cake in the tin (end of step 5).

And after marbling (end of step 6).

It came out of the oven slightly compressed, as I'd covered it with foil and baking paper in an effort to stop the stupid college oven grilling the top. It sort of worked - at least it's not burnt to a cinder on top!

It looks rather better when turned out of the tin though. The photo looks a bit more anaemic than the cake does in real life.

The marbling didn't work though. One day, I'll get it right, but today was not that day.I also baked a (half-quantities) flapjack to bring with me too. Slightly overcooked it, and then forgot that you have to let flapjacks cool in the tin before removing, or they disintegrate. Oops.

Verdict: Yes! We have n̶o̶ bananas!

Well, I've tried one of the cupcakes now. The flavours aren't as coherent as they were in my head, so it's a slightly strange mish-mash of tastes. But it's pretty decent overall - I'm not convinced by the chocolate chips though; I don't really know if they go that well with the rest of the cake. But the sweetened mascarpone works wonderfully and the texture is absolutely wonderful. It's mostly a good recipe I think, but needs a bit of tweaking - perhaps just going down the plain banana bread cupcake route is the way forward.

Frank Silver and Irving Cohn lied!

I owe Rob a cake. I bribed him a few weeks ago with the promise of cake, so it's time to make good on my promise!

Yes! We Have No Bananas!
Ingredients
For the cake

• 4 Very ripe bananas (~350g peeled weight)
  
• 310g Honey
• 2 Eggs
• 3tbsp Olive oil
• 3tbsp Milk
• 78g Self-raising flour*
• 130g Plain flour*
• 80g Strong bread flour*
  
• 3tsp Bicarbonate of soda**
• ~1/4 Nutmeg (just over a gram)
• 110g Chocolate chips

For the filling/decoration

• 250g Mascarpone
• 35g Honey
• Dried banana chips

Method

1. Mash the bananas with the honey.
2. Whisk in the eggs, oil and milk.
3. Fold in the flour, baking powder and nutmeg.
4. Fold in the chocolate chips.
5. Divide the mixture between a greased 1lb loaf tin and 5 cupcake cases and bake at ~180C for ~15mins (cupcakes) or ~30mins (loaf tin) until cooked through.
6. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
7. Cream the mascarpone and honey together.
8. Cut the loaf cake in half horizontally.
9. Sandwich the loaf cake with the mascarpone/honey mixture and spread the rest on the top of the cupcakes.
10. Embed banana chips in the top of the cakes.
    

*Yes, I ran out of flour. How did you guess?
**Honey is slightly acidic, so no cream of tartar should be necessary. I think...

Here's the mixture at the end of step 1. As you can see, there are still quite a few lumps of banana - I should have mashed the bananas on their own first and then added honey afterwards. Well, hindsight is 20/20 and all that.Ready for the oven - check out my new cupcake moulds!The cupcakes out of the oven. They're slightly overcooked, and one has an elephant man thing going on, which will need amputation at some point. But they look like cupcakes at least!Here's the loaf cake out of the oven and finally cooked through. It's a bit... what's the word? Oh yes, BURNT TO HELL! I've now discovered that the stupid crappy college-provided oven has the heating element on the top of the oven - so when you bake things, they also grill simultaneously. A complete pain for baking cakes! Oh well, I'll just have to hack the top off.But at least it released from the tin nicely. :o)The finished article.