Orange and Chocolate Marble Cake

My  Rainbow Cake was indeed a pleasure to look at. It was also oh -so-delicious!! Moist and light...just the kind of cake you would want to eat as is on a picnic or send as a snack-box treat for your child. And quick and easy enough to make on the spur of the moment and take it for your ever- ready-to-be-your guinea-pig-cousins that evening. The taste of Farida's cake still lingering on my tongue, I had been wanting to bake the cake again. My cousin had just landed a terrific job in her campus interview and I had been wanting to bake a cake for her. The opportunity came when I had to take my son for a show that evening, very close to my cousin's place. Perfect.

I had read a lot about the famous Orange-Chocolate cake combo, but never eaten or made this ' flavors marry well' delight. I thought it would be great to try out  Farida's recipe with these flavors. So I again made a couple of modifications and the recipe went as follows. And it resulted in an extremely refreshing zesty orange and chocolate cake, teasing and leaving my taste-buds( and my cousins:-) asking for more...

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Makes one 9-inch (23 cm) cake
(Enough to feed 8 grown up cousins or 20 little kids in second grade:-)

INGREDIENTS
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup (8 oz / 250 g) powdered sugar
1 cup (8 fl oz / 250 ml) milk, at room temperature
1 cup (8 fl oz / 250 ml) oil (corn, vegetable or canola is fine)
2 cups (10 oz / 300 g) all-purpose flour
1/3 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 tablespoon (equals 3 teaspoons) baking powder (if not available, substitute with 1 teaspoon baking soda)
2 tablespoons dark cocoa powder (make sure it is not very bitter) such as Dutch-processed
3/4 tea spoon grated Orange Zest

You’ll also need: mixing bowls, electric mixer or wire whisk, 9 inch (23 cm) non-stick round cake pan.
1. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Grease and line your baking tin with butter paper and flour it lightly.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine eggs and sugar. Using a hand-held electric mixer or wire whisk beat until the mixture is creamy and light in color

3. Add milk and oil, and continue beating until well blended.

4. Sieve the flour and the baking powder. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and beat just until the batter is smooth and the dry ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. DO NOT OVERBEAT to prevent air pockets from forming in the batter.
5. Divide the mixture into 2 equal portions. I added the Orange Zest and some Orange food color to one portion. (Oh, why had I not used this orange for the Rainbow cake:-( ). Since I was not very sure about how much of orange zest I would need, I added 1/3 spoon of vanilla as well as I did not want an eggy smell due of less orange zest.

6. Add cocoa powder into the other part of the batter and mix well.

7. Layer the orange and chocolate batters alternatively.

Give a gentle swirl with a chop stick (with the tip of the chop stick touching the bottom of the pan). Oops! Seemed like the tin was almost 3/4th  full!!! I risked the marble design and took out a ladle ful of batter out from the edge of the pan. Thought it would be better than the batter overflowing out of the tin.  Had some batter left over as my pan is smaller. Made a few cup cakes later.

Could have swirled a little less...

8. Baked for about 40-45 minutes.
The cake was cracked at the top, but otherwise fine. It also took a little longer  to pass the skewer test. (More batter than I should have put I guess).

Try this out ! You will adore it and find excuses to bake it again and again and again!!