Life’s better with Marble cake!

Marble cake tastes so good and is fun to make. I’ve seen it for sale in many places - Jewish delis, German and Spanish supermarkets - but I don’t think you can beat a home-made cake.

I’ve made different kinds (traybakes, loaf cakes, regular round cakes) and like them all. This one is chocolate orange flavoured, which is particularly delicious. The zesting and juicing is the trickiest part but it is worth it! (I will try out using orange essence and shop-bought orange juice next time I make it, to make the recipe more dyspraxia-friendly too.)

Chocolate orange marble loaf cake

(This recipe is by Caroline Hire, from BBC Good Food)

My tip: Use ready-made loaf tin liners as this saves time

You will need:

• A 2lb (8x21cm) loaf tin

• Baking paper or a liner

• Kitchen scales

• Grater

• Citrus juicer

• Skewer

• Measuring spoons

• Tablespoon

• Teaspoon (for drizzling the melted chocolate)

• 2 large bowls

• A microwaveable bowl

• Electric whisk

• 225g very soft butter, plus extra for greasing (I chop my butter into roughly 2cm pieces and put it into warm water - cooled from the kettle - to soften it)

• 225g caster sugar

• 225g self-raising flour

• 4 large free-range eggs

• 2 tablespoons milk

• 3 tablespoons cocoa powder

• Zest of one large orange

• 1 tablespoon of orange juice

• (optional - a few drops of orange food colouring)

• 50g of orange chocolate, broken into pieces

  How to make it:

  1. Preheat your oven to 180C/ 160C fan/ Gas 4.

  2. Line your tin and grease with a little butter.

  3. Finely grate the zest of the orange.

  4. Cut the orange in half and juice it.

  5. Crack your eggs and beat in a large bowl until frothy.

  6. Add the butter, sugar and flour to the eggs and beat with an electric whisk until lump free.

  7. Spoon out half the mixture in another bowl.

  8. In one of the bowls, add the milk and cocoa powder and beat until combined.

  9. In the other bowl, add the orange juice, zest (and orange food colouring, if using) and beat until combined.

  10. Spoon alternate dollops of the mixture into the cake tin.

  11. Use a skewer to create a marble pattern by dragging it through the mixture in swirls. Don’t over-mix or you’ll lose the marble-effect.

  12. Level the surface, if needed.

  13. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until golden and risen and a skewer poked in comes out clean (put it back the oven if not, and cover the top with tin foil, if it is starting to burn).

  14. Leave the cake in the tin to cool, then turn out onto a plate.

  15. Melt the chocolate on a medium heat in the microwave until melted (this takes a minute or so in my microwave but yours may take more or less time).

  16. Use a spoon to drizzle the melted chocolate over the cake.

  17. Leave the chocolate to set or eat it when still warm, if you’re impatient like me!