Roselle's Blog Half Term Treats

Hi,
Welcome to my second Blog. Its half-term so I've got a great idea for something to do whilst its raining.

This week I'm going to show you how to make a marble cake, which is a mix between a regular cake and chocolate cake. So, its great if you can't decide which one you want. I particularly like this cake because you get a pretty pattern when you take it out of the oven.

Ingredients
Cake :
200g caster sugar 200g butter 200g self raising flour
3 large free range eggs 3 rounded tablespoons of cocoa powder 1 rounded teaspoon of baking powder
Topping
100g butter 225g icing sugar 2 tablespoons of milk A few drops of vanilla essence

Method
1)Pre-heat the oven to 180oC or gas mark 4

2)Soften butter in the microwave for a few seconds not too much though

3)Beat butter and sugar until it is pale and fluffy

4)Break eggs into a separate bowl and whisk until they are mixed properly

5)Add the eggs into the butter and sugar mixture and stir

6)Gently stir in the sifted flour and baking powder

7)Right this is the messy bit! Carefully separate the mixture equally into two separate bowls and add the cocoa powder to one of the bowls and mix it in. So you should have two bowls one with a brown mix and one with a yellow mix

8)Grease two baking tins and line the bottoms with baking powder. I used 18 cm (7 inch) round tins

9)Put a spoonful of each mixture alternatively around the tins so you should end up with brown, yellow, brown, yellow etc. all around each tin

10) With the handle of a teaspoon, swirl the mixture from the bottom of each brown segment to the top of a yellow segment so you get pretty swirl patterns in the mixture. Take care not to completely combine the brown with the yellow otherwise you'll loose the pretty pattern

11)Put both tins in the oven and bake for 25 minutes but check after 20 minutes to make sure they are not burning

12)When they are cooked careful lift them out of the oven with a pair of oven gloves and put them on a cooling rack to completely cool, leaving them in their tins

13)While they are cooling make the topping by beating the butter so that it is soft. Add the icing sugar and milk and mix until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add vanilla essence and chill for ten minutes (that's the topping, not you). You can also add 3Tbsp of cocoa powder to the mix if you want it chocolatey

14)Once the cakes are cool build the cake with the topping in the middle and on the top and decorate it how you like

15)Enjoy!
Toodle pip ' 'til next time.
Roselle