Marble cake

In continuation with weekend baking series , this week I tried out a recipe from Simple Home Baking- by Carol Pastor.This recipe brought back memories of a cake I used to love when I was in India. In India, we get a brand of cakes called as Milka Wonder cake. The line of cakes were released around the time I was in school. All of us loved it. Though it was the first brand of cakes that were packed with an expiry date, the cake slices were soft and tasty.Usually the cake was a combination of two flavours, chocolate and vanilla or orange and vanilla. The colour contrast attracted all the kids and parents too, to fall in love with them.When I saw the marble cake recipe with two different layers, I had to try it. For the chocolate layer I used cocoa and powdered chocolate chips and cofee powder. All three ingredients add more taste to the layer.

Marble Cake

All purpose flour- 2 cups

Baking powder- 1 tsp

Milk-1/3 cup

Eggs -2 (large)

Veg oil-1/2 cup

Granulated white sugar-1 cup

Unsweetened cocoa powder-1/3 cup

Chocolate chips coarsely powdered-1/4 cup

Coffee powder-1 tsp

Vanilla Extract-1 tsp

Salt-1/2 tsp

We are going to prepare 2 layers of batter for the cake.

Vanilla layer

1. In a bowl, whisk the veg oil and sugar together.
2. Add the eggs one by one and whisk them until they are light and fluffy.
3. With the above mixture,sift flour,baking powder and salt. Add the milk and mix them using a spatula until they are well blended.
4. Transfer half of the batter to a second bowl.In the first half add the vailla extract and blend with the spatula gently.

Chocolate layer

1. Take the second bowl of batter and add the coocoa, coffee powder and powdered chocolate chips and blend using a spatula.

Preparing the Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees C.
2. Grease a medium loaf pan. Pour half of vanilla layer batter into the pan and spread evenly.
3. Pour in the chocolate layer batter over the vanilla layer.
4. Pour the remaining vanilla layer batter over the chocolate layer.
5. Using a knfe, gently swirl in so that the vanilla and chocolate are mixed. Do not swirl a lot.
6. Bake the cake for 50- 60 min. Remove when the toothpick tester inserted comes clean.

Cool for 30 min.
Serve slices of marble cake.

Homemade White Bread

Bread always comes in handy, when I am lazy to cook an elaborate Indian Breakfast. And more over, I am a person who likes to eat a very light breakfast; I hate the idea of dozing in the morning’s at office. I decided to bake bread every weekend, so that I could use it for breakfast during weekdays.



Homemade breads are more filling and fresh, and they have a good smell. Not to say, you can always be proud while you eat it.

Homemade Bread

All purpose flour – 3 to 4 cups
Yeast – 1 tsp
Sugar – 1 tsp
Honey – 1 tsp
Salt – ½ tsp
Warm water – ¾ cup
Milk – ¾ cup

1. Take ¾ cup of warm water (not lukewarm but little hotter) add sugar into it and stir. Then add the yeast and leave it for 5 to 10 min until the yeast rises and foams up. Sugar acts as a food for the yeast, so add the sugar first then the yeast. This step is very important because if your yeast doesn’t rise up your bread doesn’t too. If your yeast is not rising even after 10 minutes, that may mean your yeast has gone stale, replace it with a fresh one.


2. In a large bowl, add the salt, honey and milk and stir in with the foamed yeast, so that they are blended well.
3. Add 3 cups of flour and mix and knead it to form smooth dough if the dough is a little bit sticky, you can add the a 1/4 cup of remaining flour slowly and mix until the dough is smooth.
4. Grease a large bowl with vegetable oil and place the dough in it. Place a wrap, and cover it with a wet towel and set it aside for 1 hour.

5. After an hour, we see that that the dough has raised nearly three times its size. So, it’s always important that the dough is placed in a very large bowl.

6. Take the dough and press it flat on a surface using your hand (see the picture below)and knead it for about 2 min. Then roll it and place it in a medium loaf pan. Place a wrap, and cover it with a wet towel and set it aside for 30 min.



7. The dough has risen in size again and is now is now ready for baking.



8. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake for 25- 30min After 25 min you can check in, by tapping on the dough. It should give a hollow sound. That means it’s done. If the sound is not hollow, place the dough in again and check after 5 min.
9. Remove from the oven and let it cool.

Serves one medium loaf; but the recipe can be doubled as well.