One of my friends had her birthday the other day, and I asked her if she’d like a cake. When she said yes, I was dreading what kind she’d like, because there’s only so many I’ve been known to do well, but thankfully she said ‘Marble cake’ and that was something I’d already done before. I tried a new recipe though from a new (children’s cookbook) called Das Sandmänchen Backbuch. It has the coolest things in there and I’ll definitely report back with more recipes taken from there. I’ve changed it a little bit, but it tasted awesome all the same. Preparation time is around 40min, baking takes an hour.

Ingredients:

(For one Bundt cake tin)

250g soft butter
200g sugar
1 sachet of vanilla sugar (or about 7g)
a pinch of salt
4 medium eggs
450g white flour (type 405 if you can find it)
1 sachet of baking powder (or about 7g)
225ml milk
30g cocoa powder

Butter the tin (or use a cake release spray, that worked just fine). Preheat the oven to 180-200°C and put the oven grid on the bottom shelf.

Use your hand-mixer’s dough hooks to whip the butter into a creamy mixture. Add the sugar bit by bit and keep beating. Start by adding in the vanilla sugar and salt, then incorporate the eggs into the mixture while you keep whisking.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking powder then add to the rest of the mixture. Finally keep pouring milk until the dough doesn’t stick to the spoon anymore. Make sure you keep a little bit of milk for later.

Pour half the dough into the tin and smoothen the surface using a wooden spoon. Pour the cocoa powder and the leftover milk into the leftover dough and mix well. Pour into the tin. Using a fork or skewer, draw spirals into the dough, making sure you’re in both the light and dark halves. Again smoothen the surface.

Put the tin in the oven and bake for an hour. After the time is up, use a skewer or knife to check whether it’s ready. If it comes out clear, take the tin out and leave to cool for five to ten minutes.

Using a plate, slowly flip over the tin and hope the cake slides out without breaking. If it sticks, use a skewer to carefully break it off the tin sides.

Usually the top goes over the tin, and therefore your cake bottom will be wonky. You can try to cut it straight with a knife (a great excuse to taste bits straight away). You can also cover the cake in icing or chocolate glazing.

Nothing more to say except… NOM NOM NOM