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This Month’s Featured Recipe
Rum-Scented Marble Cake
Marble
cakes
are
both
homey
and
festive.
A
marble cake looks slick when you
slice into it and reveal the delicate pattern created when the two
batters are swirled together. My first experience working with this
type of mixture came about as the result of a marbled chocolate terrine
that appeared first in the pages of the old Cook’s Magazine, and then
in my chocolate book. Everything about it was right – the texture, the
flavor, the quantity of mixture in relation to the mold – everything,
that is, except the marbling. Even when I barely mixed the white and
dark chocolate mixtures, what I got was a few streaks of dark and
white, and mostly a muddy combined color. After several frustrating
attempts, I realized that I had too much dark chocolate mixture and
recast the recipe so that there was twice as much white chocolate
mixture as dark and the terrine marbled perfectly. So this marble cake
is proportioned in the same way: Rather than dividing the base batter
in half, I like to remove about a third of it and add the chocolate.
Thanks to my old friend Ceri Hadda, who shared her mother’s recipe
years ago.
Makes one 10-inch tube or Bundt cake, about 24 slices
Base Batter
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour (spoon flour into dry-measure cup and
level off)
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 ounces (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
7 large eggs
3 tablespoons dark rum
Chocolate Batter
2 tablespoons dark rum
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
6 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) chocolate, melted and cooled
2 cups Base Batter, above
One 12-cup tube or Bundt pan, buttered, coated with fine, dry
breadcrumbs, and sprayed with vegetable oil cooking spray
- Set a rack in the lower
third of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees.
- In the bowl of an
electric mixer, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir
well by hand to mix. Add the butter. Beat the mixture on low speed with
the paddle until the mixture is a smooth, heavy paste, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Whisk the eggs and rum
together. On medium speed, beat 1/3 of the egg mixture into the flour
and butter mixture. Beat for 1 minute.
- Stop and scrape down the
bowl and beater. Add half of the egg mixture and beat for 2 minutes.
Repeat with the other half.
- Remove the bowl from the
mixer and using a large rubber spatula give the batter a final mixing.
- For the chocolate
batter, combine the rum, milk, and baking soda in a medium mixing bowl.
Whisk well to dissolve the baking soda. Scrape in the chocolate and
whisk it well. Add the 2 cups of base batter to the chocolate mixture
and whisk well to combine.
- Scrape half the
remaining base batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Cover
with the chocolate batter, making it as even a layer as possible.
Finally top with the remaining base batter and smooth the top. Use a
wide-bladed table knife or a thin metal spatula to marble the batter:
Insert the knife into the batter at the central tube with the flat side
of the blade facing you. Draw the blade through the batter to the
bottom of the pan and up and out the side of the pan closest to you,
repeating the motion every inch or so around the pan, making a spiral
in the batter, almost as though you were folding egg whites into it.
Stop when you get back to the point where you started. Don’t bother to
smooth the top of the batter – it might disturb the marbling.
- Bake the cake until it
is well risen and firm, and a toothpick or a small thin knife inserted
midway between the side of the pan and the central tube emerges dry,
about 1 hour.
- Cool the cake in the pan
for 5 minutes, then invert a rack over it. Invert and lift off the pan.
Cool the cake completely on the rack.
Serving: This doesn't need any accompaniment.
Storage: Wrap the cooled cake in plastic wrap and keep it at room
temperature. Freeze for longer storage. Defrost cake and bring it to
room temperature before serving.
You may also be interested
in
these recipes:
Easy
Chocolate
Mousse
Lower
the
Carbs—Keep
the
Flavor
These are the recipes I did on Martha Stewart Radio.
Here's
the
recipe
for
the
X
Cookies that I made on Baking with Julia.
Click
here
for
the
Dutch
Apple
Cake I made on CBS This Morning.
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