Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s baking Caking with Jemz Cake Box and Premier Gospel Radio.

I hope you are enjoying these baking sessions and saving money on buying ready made cakes from the shops. Cakes seem to be taking over the world of late. Everyone wants to open a cake business or cake shop. People are developing skills they never knew they had in the baking and cake decorating department. It was the same for me.

Although I have been a chef for over 26 years, I was not a pastry chef, I stumbled upon the baking and along the way have perfected my recipes. When it comes to the decorating side of things that too is self taught, a gift gleaned from my days or drawing back in school.

When making and decorating a cake, you want it look amazing and taste fantastic. Many people can make great cakes but fall short with the decorating, while others can decorate beautifully but fall short in the area of baking. I have managed to master both and it is my intention to teach you the same.

As with anything in life the foundation is the most important, so master a good sponge, back it up with the perfection other flavours and you will have won the hearts of your family and friends before even getting to decorating stage. Remember a cake is not just to look at, it is there to be eaten… Something I often have to remind my customers who refuse to cut their cakes!!

So Let’s Get Baking!!!

This week we will be making a marble cake. You can play around with the flavours. I make 2 types. Chocolate vanilla marble cake and chcoclate orange marble cake. This week we will be using the plain flour sponge recipe and multiplying it by 2.5 for a loaf tin of 5 for a 10″ round tin to make a chcoclate vanilla marble cake

Ingredients 

250g baking margarine or butter

250g caster sugar

250g plain flour

1.5 tbs vanilla essence

2 tbs cocoa

1 tbs vegetable oil

12.5g baking powder

5 eggs

If you wish to make a 10″ round tin, multiply the above recipe by 2

Method

Heat your oven to 165 degrees. Using last week’s method, cream 250g of caster sugar and 250g of butter or baking margarine in a freestanding mixer or using an electric hand whisk. If using an electric hand whisk make sure you use a plastic or metal bowl as glass and ceramic bowls may chip and you don’t want any dangerous foreign bodies turning up in your cake and causing injury.

In a separate jug whisk the 5 eggs and vanilla essence

Remember during the creaming process to scrape down the bowl as and when required

When the mix is nice and fluffy and pale in colour add the beaten eggs a little at a time, creaming/mixing well in between each addition. Don’t forget to scrape your bowl down when required.

Don’t panic if your mixture curdles, this happens to the best of us. If this happens you can add a little of your weighed flour, but you don’t have to.

Once all the egg is incorporated sieve 250 plain flour and 12.5 g baking powder into a bowl and then add to your mixture in 2 batches, folding/mixing gently until all the flour is combined and you have a smooth batter.

Spoon out a portion of your batter about 150-200g into a small bowl and add the cocoa powder and oil and mix until combined

 

 

 

 

 

Place a few spoons of vanilla batter followed by the chcoclate batter into your prepared baking tin. You will have more vanilla than chcoclate so always add more of the vanilla when spooning in the mixture. Repeat this until all the batter is in the baking tin

 

 

 

 

 

Once all the batter is in the tin, using using a skewer make the sign of the number 8 numerous times to create a swirled effect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place the cake in the heated oven for about 45-50 minutes. Test the cake by gently pressing the top, it should bounce back or inserting a skewer into  the cake. The skewer should come out clean indicating the cake is fully cooked.

To make an orange marble cake, omit the vanilla from the beaten eggs. After separating the mixtures add the rind of 1 orange and 1 tbs of orange juice to the white batter and follow directions as above for the chcoclate batter. Then finish as described in the recipe

 

Look out for next weeks recipe….Apple Cinnamon Cake

Bon Appetite

Jemz