Almond Marble Cake

I have a confession to make, I’m not very good in baking, In fact the last time I baked a cake when I was like 13/14 years old, and I’m 26 this year so you can guess how rusty I am when it comes to baking. I much prefers cooking to baking because I feel cooking is an art, if you screw up you can still amend the food but baking is science, you miss a step or one ingredient or even didn’t set the temperature right there goes your baked goodies.

But I do miss baking though and I tried a few steamed varieties before I started this blog. And I think it’s fated (hehe I know it’s corny) that I should go back to baking when I saw a super cheap small oven for sale from a friend. You would think the moment I bring the oven back I’d bake millions of cakes or muffins but no I was still waiting for the right moment to bring back the baking talent (or lack of) in me. I tried the simplest cake recipe; butter cake and I failed miserably, the top was burned to crisp even though I followed the recipe to the T. And after asking my friends and referring to some cookbooks, I concluded since my oven is the smaller model I should lower the temperature and shorten the baking time.

So today I braved myself to make another version of butter cake ; Almond Marble Cake and this time with the help from my little girl. I even asked her to blow a kiss to the cake and wish us luck before popping the batter in the cake. Luck must be on our side, the cake turns out GREAT!

So here’s the recipe
(adapted from Agnes Chang's Baking Made Easy)

You need:
250gm of butter
200gm of castor sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
250gm of self raising flour or 250gm of plain flour and add 2 tablespoons of baking powder
4 tablespoons of milk
1 tablespoon of cocoa powder mix with 3 tablespoons of hot water to make a chocolate paste
A handful of sliced almonds for decorations

How to:
1. Get ready all the ingredients
2. Put butter and castor sugar into a mixing bowl
3. Use a low speed to mix until even. Change to medium speed and beat until light. Add in the first egg
4. Beat well after each addition of egg until creamy
5. Scrape down the sides for even mixing
6. Add in the vanilla essence and mix well
7. Divide flour into three portions, use lowest speed to mix in the flour. Remember to scrape the sides for even mixing
8. Finally, add milk
9. Mix until well combined
10. Keep ¼ portion of cake mixture and mix in cocoa paste.
11. Pour into a 22cm lined and greased baking tin or any baking tins you may have. Shake lightly to distribute cake mixture evenly.
12. Use a spoon to spoon cocoa mixture on top of the plain butter mixture.
13. Use a small knife to draw lines vertically to get marble effect and draw more line horizontally to get stronger marble effect.
14. Sprinkle the almonds on top mixture before putting into a pre heated oven at 160C. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and leave to cool. *

Note
*If you have the usual sized oven you need to set your temperature at 180C and bake for 45 minutes. I’m currently using the oven below for all my baking and cooking

picture curtesy of Mudah.Com.My