Sunday 9 October 2011

Chocolate and raspberry marble cake


It's nearly here! What, I hear you cry, what is nearly here? Well, Chocolate Week of course! This annual event (this year the 10th-18th October) was established eight years ago now, and you can find out more about it here, on the Divine website. Divine have been the main sponsor for this event since the start, and there are lots of yummy chocolate ideas on their website (as you'd expect really!). There are lots of events around the country that you can find out about. I love the idea of chocolate week (as a chocoholic this should not come as a surprise to regular readers..) because it's essentially an excuse to eat as much chocolate as possible... mmmm, chocolate induced stupor coming right up.


I thought I'd have a bit of a chocolate theme on the blog this week, so this is the start, although you might want to check out the insanely, intensely chocolate-y double chocolate ricotta scones I posted last week - if I'd thought ahead I'd have saved them for this week, but wanted to share their sweet goodness with you as soon as I could.

To kick off chocolate week, I decided to make a marbled cake, just to ease us in and based it partly on this recipe by Dan Lepard for a crumble topped chocolate marble cake, and also on the availability of ingredients in my fridge (yes, raspberries that I wanted to use up!) I decided to combine a few ideas and came up with this original. (As an aside, said chocolate crumble cake is pictured in Dan's new book, Short and Sweet and looks absolutely delicious. The chocolate crumble on top looks fab, I must do that some time!)


Chocolate and raspberry marble cake
Ingredients
175g butter, softened
175g caster sugar
3 large eggs
200g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
For the chocolate layer:
2 scant tbsp cocoa powder
1 scant tbsp hot water
100g chocolate (70% cocoa solids), chopped
For the raspberry layer:
70g fresh (or frozen, defrosted) raspberries, crushed
1-2 tbsp plain flour

Method
- Grease and line an 8" square tin with baking parchment. Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C.
- Cream the butter until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs one at a time, along with about 25g flour if the mixture looks as though it'll curdle.
- Sift in the remaining flour and the baking powder. Mix well.
- Transfer half of the mixture to a smaller bowl containing the crushed raspberries. Mix well, and then add the extra flour and mix this in. My mixture curdled a little.
- Add the cocoa powder and hot water and mix well, then add the chopped chocolate and mix in.
- Dollop alternate blobs of batter into the prepared tin and when all used up, swirl with the handle of a spoon to marble.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes (I think, can't quite remember the exact timings) until well risen and a cake tester/cocktail stick inserted comes out clean.
- Leave to cool on a wire rack.


I was pleased with the way this cake worked. The marbling was pretty good throughout the cake - always difficult to tell when the cake goes into the oven whether you've over or undermixed the colours. The chopped chocolate in the chocolate portion stayed well suspended and was a really tasty addition. I was really surprised by the flavour of the raspberry portion - I had expected this to be pretty non-existent if I'm honest, but even though I only used 70g raspberries in it, the flavour was definintely raspberry! Admittedly, the colour wasn't pink, but then I didn't really expect it to be. If you want a pink colour, add food colouring!

Keep an eye out for more chocolate goodies this chocolate week.... all will be revealed in good time.

10 comments:

The Caked Crusader said...

I love the excitement of a marble cake - no two slices are ever the same

MissCakeBaker said...

Marble cakes are just great.

Gerry @Foodness Gracious said...

This looks awesome, and chocolate week should extended to chocolate year!

Jacqueline Meldrum said...

Chocolate Week, how exciting! Does that mean I have to eat chocolate every day for the cause? I am willing to sacrifice myself!

Lovely looking cake. The second I have seen tonight that I have craved a slice of warm with custard.

Suelle said...

Those are inspired ideas to vary the original, C! Raspberries are such a strong flavour I'm not surprised you could really taste them. Next step - 3-colour marbling - chocolate, pink raspberry and vanilla?

Anonymous said...

I never knew there was such a thing as Chocolate Week! Thanks for the headsup, C! :)

PS. Cake looks delish! :)

Chele said...

I can;t decide what to make for chocolate week this year - the ideas just keep rolling in ... this one included. Looks like me cup of tea (or should that be my slice of cake???)

Caroline said...

CC - yes, there's always the element of surprise. Mine's the piece with the most chocolate bits though, before you ask!

MissCakeBaker - they are indeed, and so well received.

Foodness Gracious - thank you, and I totally agree - chocolate year sounds great!

Jac - yes, it does indeed! I am very glad you're willing to make the sacrifice ;-) Yes, it might be good with custard - melty chocolate bits!

Suelle - thank you! I was really pleased with the raspberry flavour, I'll have to remember that for next time. Yes, three way marbling sounds good, but might need to colour the pink a bit pinker to differentiate it!

Celia - my pleasure! and thank you :-)

Chele - it's a difficult decision isn't it! So much chocolate, so little time!

Choclette said...

This looks so pretty and it's a fun idea to have choc chips in only half of the mixture. Raspberries have such an intense taste, I'd be surprised if the flavour didn't come through.

I'm a bit late in the day, but I did my post for chocolate week today.

Johanna GGG said...

love marble cake - though I rarely make it - but it always looks so impressive - hope you are enjoying chocolate week - I have only found out about it today but maybe that is why I have been eating so much chocolate lately :-)

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