Saturday, May 05, 2007

return of the marble cake

this is another marble cake but one which does not contain any dairy products, unlike my previous version which did. this one is very light and has a delicate crumb [interior texture]. it is a large cake and should be baked in a tube cake pan with a removable insert. the cake pan is not greased in this recipe so using this kind of pan is a must; ideally, it helps to have the kind with raised attachments (see photo in recipe). at the end of cooking, the pan is turned over, and rested on these attachments, until it cools. it is the same procedure when one makes an angelfood cake.

alternatively, you can make two small loaves in pyrex pans or cut the recipe in half and just make one cake. again, they will be cooled resting upside down to prevent collapse. i set up drinking glasses as ledges on either end of the pan. use parchment paper to line the bottom for easy removal. the sides need to remain unlined as the cake needs to attach itself to attain maximum height.


vanilla 'n chocolate marble cake (non-dairy version)

this marble cake is very simple to make and one which can be used for both dairy and meat meals if you observe kashrut. make sure to use big bowls when mixing the batters though! also take note that the batter is thinner than the average one — no worries, it bakes into beautifully large and impressive cake.

ingredients:

4 eggs, separated
1 1/2 c sugar* (i suggest using ~ 1 1/8 c to 1 1/4 c)
1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 c vegetable oil

2 c** all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

[**note: increase flour anywhere from 2 1/3 to 2 1/2 c if you are not comfortable working with a thinner cake batter. the cake will be a little denser.]

1 c orange juice or soy milk or water
1 tbsp grated orange zest, optional

2 oz*** semi sweet chocolate (i suggest using 3 oz + the cocoa)
2 tbsp dark cocoa (well sifted!), optional
2 tsp instant coffee melted in 1 tbsp boiling water, optional
2 tbsp parve (non dairy) margarine

*1 1/2 c sugar is quite sweet; 1 1/8 to 1 1/4 is plenty.
**the original recipe calls for 2 oz; i have found it to be too little for this size cake.

method:

preheat oven to 350F.

have ready a tube pan. do not grease and flour it. set aside.

in a large bowl, beat yolks, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy (10 min). start adding oil while beating still.

blend dry ingredients together, then add flour and liquid (oj/soy milk/water) alternately until fully incorporated.

in another bowl, beat egg whites until stiff.

fold them into the batter carefully.

remove half of batter to another bowl. mix in orange zest, if using, to either the vanilla or chocolate batter. i usually put it in with the vanilla one.

melt margarine with the chocolate, either in microwave at low temp or on the stove. once melted, add cocoa but make sure it is sifted and well blended -- you don't want any lumps.

add it to one half of the batter and blend it well but not too much or you will destroy the structure of the egg whites. mix in the coffee melted in the water, if using.

add the vanilla and chocolate batter to the pan in alternate steps.

layer the chocolate on the vanilla and vanilla on the chocolate in the second layer.

with a knife swirl the batter around a bit. don't overdo it.

bake the cake for about 1 hr 15 minutes or a bit less. do not open the oven while it is cooking.

test with a skewer to see if it is fully cooked and then remove from oven.

invert the pan to cool.

carefully run a knife around both the outer and inner edges, and the bottom. carefully remove the cake.

you can also keep the cake in the insert and cut slices from it that way.


enjoy!

12 comments:

Nafeesah said...

Wow look at that design, I've tried time after time to make a marble cake swirl properly but it just refused to turn out! however after seeing your pic I think I must try it again :)

Chanita Harel חני הראל said...

העוגה יםה וגם התלהבתי מהתבנית שלך
כל הכבוד
וד"שים מישראל
:-)

burekaboy — said...

nafeesah - it's mostly about how you layer the two colours of batter. once that is done, all you have to do is run a knife through it but you need to go all the way to the bottom and bring it up. lol, it's your chance to be picasso!

btw, forgot to say thank you (in my answer to your other comment) for the feedback and trying the falafel recipe. the feedback helps me (for improving or ammending posting information) and others who try to make the items they see.

chanit - thanks, my dear. i love the pan, too; it makes gigantic cakes :)) greetings back to u from canada -- it's finally in the 20C's here! aviv b'emet higiyah etzleynu v'ro'im et ha'prachim m'tzitzim me'ha'adamah.

bee said...

how many pictures do you average per post? truth be told, i love them all. yours is one happening blog.

burekaboy — said...

lol bee - prolly way TOO MANY! as i'm doing it, i sometimes {ok, often!} think it's overkill, or mental on my part :\, but honestly i try to accommodate (visually) for those who have little or no cooking experience, or are trying a dish for the first time, especially as some of the things i post here are "ethnic" and not your everyday fare.

does someone need to see eggs, sugar and vanilla in a bowl as part of a recipe? not really but i guess it adds, or, at least, contributes to the visual make up of the posting for the recipe. more importantly though, i think, is showing what the result of mixing those things together is, i.e. textures, signs to look for, etc etc etc.... i know that so many times i have tried making things i am unfamiliar with and have no clue what the result of a certain step should look like.

all that to say, i hope the pix are actually helpful and not boring one out of his or her skull or are just redundant.

glad you like them, though -- i appreciate hearing that. hard to say how many pix per post, guess that depends on what i am making. usually, baking ones take forever, especially breads {my faves} as there are many in between steps.

thanks for your comment :D

Nafeesah said...

I dont mean to intrude on you guys convo lol but I really think the pics are good and they make a good visual step by step instruction. No,I guess people do not actually need to see eggs and sugar in a bowl, but neither does it bore one out when looking at it lol, good for showing each step, after all, if you're going to show out the written instructions, just do it properly innit? ^_^

Btw, I've taken out all of my ingredients to make this cake tonight, I've just looked at the ingredients closely today and I only just realized that its not made with butter, I should have realized that when it said non dairy? but eggs are also dairy products? *ponders* lol

anyway i'm excited to see how it turns out, I haven't made this type of cake before

:)

burekaboy — said...

hi nafeesah - not intruding at all. in terms of pictures, i'd rather have too many than not enough, and skip some step along the way that could be needed/helpful.

yes, this one is completely non dairy or "pareve", as we call it in hebrew & yiddish, so that it can be eaten with any meal. even the margarine must not contain any dairy byproducts (many of them here contain whey powder or things which are milk byproducts). if you don't care about this and/or it doesn't apply to you, you can use 2T of butter instead of margarine when melting the chocolate.

in terms of eggs being dairy .... hmmm i guess people associate them with dairy but i think "dairy" is just products which from the cow or other milk giving animals (e.g. goats). i wonder how big an egg from a cow would be if cows laid eggs!! LOL ;D interesting that you say that because in judaism eggs have a certain status in that they are considered parve eventhough they come from an animal (but then dairy products come from an animal and are not considered as meat byproducts!) also we check eggs one by one in a bowl before adding them to recipes to make sure there are no blood spots. any blood spots and the egg is considered not kosher and has to be discarded.

in any case, hope you have fun with making the cake. remember the batter is not very thick; you can add a bit more though if that worries you (see recipe). just alternate the colours and swirl it with the knife or a straw or a chopstick. hope you enjoy it :D

Coffee said...

PHEWW!!!!!!! Did you notice that I have stopped commenting on your posts????
But that doesn't mean that I am not reading okay!!!!
Its just that everytime I am speechless!! ;)

Nafeesah said...

Hi BB! thanks for explaining, wow it looks like theres more much to kosher than I thought, I didn't know about the eggs and all, because for us, Eggs would be halal with or without the blood bits in it (although I personally feel very queasy when I see that in an egg lol)

So about the marble cake, first of all, as expected and as i had predicted,......It didn't swirl LOL..but that's not such a big thing because my marble cakes never swirl, they just stay polka-dotty :p.

I used the orange juice, freshly squeezed, but then I only had one orange on hand, so It came to about 3/4 and I completed the 1 cup by adding a bit water.

And then, you didn't specify the size of the pan, so I just used my 10" tube pan, it didn't reach the top though.

And the cake itself was of a more dense texture than your cake in the picture,(I didn't add the extra flour) I'm wondering if it's because I mixed the egg whites too hard whilst adding in the chocolate mixture? or was it because the chocolate mix was still a bit warm? I am not sure if that affects the batter in any way.

Anyway, besides those little glitches the cake was yummmmmyyyyyyyy I'm happy to say, and I'm especially delighted because it's not that sweet sweet like other cakes, so it makes for a very nice snack-munching cake :).The orange also added a really nice flavor and my mum raved about it, she said next time add even more orange :))

Well...I guess all that's left is to just work on my swirling techniques :p lol

Thanks :)

burekaboy — said...

hi coffee - no worries about commenting/not commenting. glad to hear from you, in any case :D hope you like what you see & thanks for letting me know :)

hey there nafeesah - happy to hear that you & your mom really liked the cake (phew! ;p) in spite of the minor "problems".

sorry about the cake pan, i didn't realize i didn't specify dimension. yours was the right size. i probably assumed, when writing, that there is one basic size pan for this type (tube). i will add it in. mine measures 8 1/2 inches FROM THE BOTTOM and 10 inches from the TOP. the cake, even in my pan, didn't/doesn't reach the top once baked so your results were correct :D

in terms of density, i consider this one light as compared with others (i have tried). perhaps that is a matter of opinion and not true fact .... everyone has his or her own idea or opinion when it comes to subjective things like this. next go, i will try it using cake flour and see if it makes a difference; i imagine it will.

as for the flour, the only really "correct" way is to weigh it. there will always be variation in weight and much of that depends on how one puts it in the measuring cup. best way is always to whisk up the flour first to aerate it and then add it to measuring cup. often, people just dig in and it compacts the flour adding more than is necessary.

for the chocolate mixture, as long as you could keep a finger in the mixture comfortably without it feeling hot, i don't see a problem. a hot mixture, though, would have possibly cooked or coagulated the batter around it when incorporated.

i don't think 3/4 c of OJ + 1/4 c water vs 1 c OJ would have made a tremendous difference in orange flavour. next time, perhaps try adding some frozen orange concentrate (the kind to make juice) or some orange extract (essence).

all in all, nafeesah, doesn't seem like you made any "mistakes" :D the important end result is always how it tastes. some people would say visual appeal is most important but i liken it to this: you see perfectly coloured & formed strawberries, for example, at market, you buy them and bring them home. you can't wait to eat them. you eat your supper and have them for dessert. they're gorgeous to look at. then, upon first bite, you realize all they taste like is water. it really all does come down to taste. :))

oh yeah -- don't feel badly about the swirling part. it does take some practice and i've had lots of it. if you try this recipe again ever, it'll afford you another opportunity.

and finally: the kosher laws are very different from halal. we cannot mix meat and dairy and are forbidden all seafood. blood is COMPLETELY a no-no as it is considered a life (holy) force and may not be consumed. typically kosher meats are overcooked to assure this. anyway, the list goes on and on ...... LOL. (you can email me, if you have questions).

Nafeesah said...

Hi BB, thanks so much for the detailed explanation, I sure will be making this again but not anytime soon as I've got some other recipes from here that I want to try first ;) I get what your'e saying about the strawberries though! lol, i can honestly say that it's been years since i've not been dissapointed by the flavor of a strawberry! but I still fall for the appearances of those little rogues every time :p

I understand what you're saying about the flour and aerating it, though i've never heard of that way before, what i usually do when measuring out flour is to shake around the cup alittle and let it become level on it's own instead of patting it down.....I guess this way still causes more flour to be added than required?

Back in Malaysia they usually use grams in their measurements and so we use the scale, but here in the Bahamas the people dont do that (and I personally found the cup to be much easier lol) but now that you mentioned this, i'm thinking that I'll go back to the scale again..hmm...


Wow I didn't know that about the kosher rules..and about all seafood being forbidden, in Islam blood is prohibited also but only in it's 'pure' form, rare meat and such dont fall under that category.....I guess as I try some more of your recipes, I can also learn more and more of the kosher rules :D it'd stick in my mind better that way!

anyway, I'm off to look for some other interesting recipe :)

burekaboy — said...

nafeesah - HA HA, i didn't think you'd be making it again too soon -- 'ya haven't even finished this one off yet!! ;D

here in canada, our measures are usually for grams & kilos and mLs & litres but many people do not understand that. they changed everything over to metric about 35 or 40 years ago so the older people still use cups and pints. anyway, i like the empirical measures, too. unfortunately, it is not as accurate as weights.

for the flour, i'd stick to whisking it up before measuring and then adding it to the cup and using the back of a knife to even it off. shaking it probably adds more flour than necessary but hey, it's not that big of a deal as it's minimal.

the kosher thing -- i add info in the posts here and there. any questions, just ask.

have fun looking around :)