Marble Cake for Mummy

I had my first slice of marble cake from my mummy years ago. It's the one cake we both love. The reason why I love marble cake - it's not all chocolate cake (which can be too much at times) as there's a good mixture of butter cake. I remember fondly how she would deliberately pick out the marble cakes that had more chocolate than butter simply because I love chocolate.

However, there was a period where I swore off the marble cake. See, my mummy has this thing, if u tell her you like something, she will feed that to you everyday for the rest of your life, unless you tell her you had enough. She doesn't seem to understand that liking something doesn't mean you want to overdose on it. Yup, that's how I had too much of marble cake and swore off it.

So when the time came to bake something for her, I decided naturally that it had to be a marble cake. I have tried this before but I didn't marble the cake right, in fact, I marbled it too many times that the cake turned out like a chocolate-butter mixture cake instead. But this time round, I got it right! Thanks to Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours, I learnt how to marble correctly in order to achieve the right marble effect.

Let's start marbling! Here's what you'll need:

- 2 cups + 2 tablespoons flour

- 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter

- 1 cup granulated white sugar

- 4 eggs

- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 1/2 cup milk

- 4 oz bittersweet chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and line the bottom of an 8 1/2 inch loaf pan with parchment paper.

2. Chop and melt the bittersweet chocolate. (You can do this in a microwave or in a heatproof bowl over simmering water.) Set it aside to cool.

3. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

4. Beat the butter until smooth (takes about 3 mins).

5. Add the sugar and beat for 2 mins.

6. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat well.

7. Beat in the vanilla extract.

8. Add in the flour mixture, alternating with the milk, starting and ending with the flour (flour - milk - flour - milk - flour). Beat on low speed.

9. Divide the batter in half and mix in the chocolate mixture into one half.

10. Drop in blops of butter and chocolate batter into the loaf pan, then use a knife and marble through from one end to the other twice. Then smooth the top of the batter.

11. Bake for 55 - 60 mins until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Mummy is faraway and I hope she knows I miss her through this marble cake.