Rains in any metropolitan city in India eventually brings traffic to a stand still, which leads to long journeys back home. Although I love monsoons, however such days usually leave me too drained as it takes ages to reach home from work... This year the rain gods have been especially kind to us. The National Capital seems to have finally got it's pending spell of continuous rains bringing with it the much-needed respite from the summer heat. But it also meant having to wait for what felt like ages to get an autorickshaw, a breakdown in the city's lifeline Metro, a snarl in traffic movement. So this other day, after taking over 90 minutes to reach home after office which usually takes less than half of that time, I needed to do something to de-stress and what better way to do that than some good old baking :) :) :) However, I wanted to experiment. I know the basic recipe for a chocolate marble cake in theory but as I don't eat chocolate, had never made it. So keeping all this in mind, I thought of replacing chocolate with some flavour I like. And add some colour to it, so that the cake has two shades. So decided on my all-time favourite flavour of all time -- lemon! And add a pinch of yellow food colour, and voila... I had my awesome (I liked it) lemon vanilla marble cake!!!
So here's my humble recipe...
The basic recipe remains that of a sponge cake and we basically divide it into two parts and add flavour to one. So first the recipe for a basic sponge cake:-
1. Fine flour - 2 cups
2. Eggs - 4 nos
3. Castor (grinded) sugar - 1 1/2 cups
* Tip: Always measure castor sugar according to sugar in raw form, so here I mean one-and-a-half cup of raw sugar, which we need to dry grind to make a powder of it.
4. Butter - 90 gms (I used one pack of 90 gms of Amul Butter)
5. Vanilla essence - 2 teaspoons (tsp)
6. Baking powder - 1 tsp
7. Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
8. Refined oil - 1 tsp
9. Milk - 2 tablespoons (tbsp)
* Tip: Measurement is the key to baking. So ensure you have the set of measurement spoons and cup in your pantry. It is easily available at utensil stores or shops which sell kitchen storage stuff (dabba dibbi wali dukaan :D)
Procedure:
Semi melt the butter in the microwave for 30 seconds or let it come to a bit gooey texture at room temperature. Then prepare your baking tin. I used a 25 cm diameter tin. Put 1 tsp of refined oil in the tin and coat it entirely with turning it sideways and front and back wards. Sprinkle a lil' bit of fine flour (maida) and coat the tin by beating the edges on your kitchen counter or a table top.
Beat the eggs in a bowl to a fluffy white foamy consistency, and sugar and butter in a separate one. Then add the beaten eggs to the sugar and butter mixture. Use an electric blender (I use a Morphy Richards hand blender).
Whisk in the flour into the mixture. (I find it easier to use a normal egg beater for this as electric hand beaters tend to make a mess by flying here and there with an electric beater.) Keep mixing the batter in cut-and-fold pattern—3 times clockwise and then make a straight line in the batter and then 3 times anti-clockwise and then make a straight line. Then add baking soda, baking powder and vanilla essence and mix again. Add the milk to give the batter a smooth finish.
I don't have an OTG and bake in convection mode of my microwave (LG intellocook), which basically means at 180 degrees Celsius.
So pre-heat the oven at convection for 5 minutes with a stand in it. Put the cake batter into the tin and again gently beat the edges on a table top to remove any air gaps. Put the tin on the rack and put it on convection mode for 40 mins. After 35 mins, take out the tin from the oven using oven mittens and put inside a skewer or knitting needle and if nothing from the cake sticks, it's almost done and put it again for 7 mins (it usually takes 42 mins baking and 1 min standby). Switch off the oven and let the cake be inside it for a couple of more mins, I can never wait over a minute, thus 1 min standby time :-p Let it cool. Put a plate on top of the tin and invert it and the cake shall come out, turn it over and enjoy!
Now for the lemon vanilla marble cake.
So till the batter, everything will be same. Post that, we will need 3 more things.
10. Lemon juice - 2 tbsp
11. Lemon rind - 1 tsp
12. Yellow food colour - A pinch
So after making the batter, divide it equally into two bowls. Into one, add the colour, juice and rind and give it mix till the batter takes a beautiful yellow colour. Now in the prepared tin, put one small ladle of plain batter and one ladle of flavoured batter and complete a circle. (In my tin, I could put five small ladles in the outer circle.) Then make an inner circle similarly (I could put three) and if space left another ladleful in the centre. Now use the skewer to slightly mix the batter by forming an 'S' shape across the circles. Make it twice or thrice cross sectionally. It will look like a modern art painting, don't worry. Now put it in the pre-heated oven for 35 mins and then check and put it again for 7-8 mins. Take it out, let it cool, cut slices and tadaaa! Eat and enjoy :)
And now some pictures...
Whisking in
Adding baking soda
Equal division into two bowls
Adding lemon rind
Mix till the batter turns yellow
So here's my humble recipe...
The basic recipe remains that of a sponge cake and we basically divide it into two parts and add flavour to one. So first the recipe for a basic sponge cake:-
1. Fine flour - 2 cups
2. Eggs - 4 nos
3. Castor (grinded) sugar - 1 1/2 cups
* Tip: Always measure castor sugar according to sugar in raw form, so here I mean one-and-a-half cup of raw sugar, which we need to dry grind to make a powder of it.
4. Butter - 90 gms (I used one pack of 90 gms of Amul Butter)
5. Vanilla essence - 2 teaspoons (tsp)
6. Baking powder - 1 tsp
7. Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
8. Refined oil - 1 tsp
9. Milk - 2 tablespoons (tbsp)
* Tip: Measurement is the key to baking. So ensure you have the set of measurement spoons and cup in your pantry. It is easily available at utensil stores or shops which sell kitchen storage stuff (dabba dibbi wali dukaan :D)
Procedure:
Semi melt the butter in the microwave for 30 seconds or let it come to a bit gooey texture at room temperature. Then prepare your baking tin. I used a 25 cm diameter tin. Put 1 tsp of refined oil in the tin and coat it entirely with turning it sideways and front and back wards. Sprinkle a lil' bit of fine flour (maida) and coat the tin by beating the edges on your kitchen counter or a table top.
Beat the eggs in a bowl to a fluffy white foamy consistency, and sugar and butter in a separate one. Then add the beaten eggs to the sugar and butter mixture. Use an electric blender (I use a Morphy Richards hand blender).
Whisk in the flour into the mixture. (I find it easier to use a normal egg beater for this as electric hand beaters tend to make a mess by flying here and there with an electric beater.) Keep mixing the batter in cut-and-fold pattern—3 times clockwise and then make a straight line in the batter and then 3 times anti-clockwise and then make a straight line. Then add baking soda, baking powder and vanilla essence and mix again. Add the milk to give the batter a smooth finish.
I don't have an OTG and bake in convection mode of my microwave (LG intellocook), which basically means at 180 degrees Celsius.
So pre-heat the oven at convection for 5 minutes with a stand in it. Put the cake batter into the tin and again gently beat the edges on a table top to remove any air gaps. Put the tin on the rack and put it on convection mode for 40 mins. After 35 mins, take out the tin from the oven using oven mittens and put inside a skewer or knitting needle and if nothing from the cake sticks, it's almost done and put it again for 7 mins (it usually takes 42 mins baking and 1 min standby). Switch off the oven and let the cake be inside it for a couple of more mins, I can never wait over a minute, thus 1 min standby time :-p Let it cool. Put a plate on top of the tin and invert it and the cake shall come out, turn it over and enjoy!
Now for the lemon vanilla marble cake.
So till the batter, everything will be same. Post that, we will need 3 more things.
10. Lemon juice - 2 tbsp
11. Lemon rind - 1 tsp
12. Yellow food colour - A pinch
So after making the batter, divide it equally into two bowls. Into one, add the colour, juice and rind and give it mix till the batter takes a beautiful yellow colour. Now in the prepared tin, put one small ladle of plain batter and one ladle of flavoured batter and complete a circle. (In my tin, I could put five small ladles in the outer circle.) Then make an inner circle similarly (I could put three) and if space left another ladleful in the centre. Now use the skewer to slightly mix the batter by forming an 'S' shape across the circles. Make it twice or thrice cross sectionally. It will look like a modern art painting, don't worry. Now put it in the pre-heated oven for 35 mins and then check and put it again for 7-8 mins. Take it out, let it cool, cut slices and tadaaa! Eat and enjoy :)
And now some pictures...
 |
| The semi-melted butter |
 |
| Eggs |
 |
| Eggs ready to be beaten |
Beating eggs
Butter and castor sugar
Keep mixing
Adding the flour
Adding vanilla essence
 |
| Adding baking powder |
And lemon juice
Adding the food colour
The prepared tin
The modern art like batter
 |
| Cutting the cake |
The marbled effect
