Marble Cake

Husband's recurring request: marble cake.  He is not a fan of layered cakes with lots of icings or frostings so a marble cake is, by far, the closest to a fancy cake that he'd crave for.  This is my 3rd attempt and while I admit it's still not perfect, it is hands down wayyyy better than the first two cakes i made in terms of taste, texture and appearance. 
















Not perfect because i'm still not satisfied with how i swirled the vanilla and chocolate together to create the marbled effect.  I want (no, demand!) equal amounts of both on every slice, not just a streak of chocolate.  But it tasted really good, thanks to Martha Stewart's website for the recipe.  I don't have dutch-processed cocoa powder (it's so hard to find one) so i used regular unsweetened cocoa powder instead.

MARBLE CAKE

(Martha Stewart's recipe)

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Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
1 3/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder
2/3 cup buttermilk, room temperature (if you don't have buttermilk you can easily make one: just mix 1 cup milk and 1 tablespoon lemon juice.  stir and let sit for 5 minutes then use in any recipe requiring buttermilk.  You can also use white vinegar instead of lemon juice but i haven't tried it yet.)


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan; set aside. Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in vanilla. Add flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour. Set aside 1/3 of the batter.
3. In a bowl, mix cocoa and 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water with a rubber spatula until smooth. Add the cocoa mixture to the reserved cake batter; stir until well combined.
4. Spoon batters into the prepared pan in 2 layers, alternating spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate to simulate a checkerboard. To create marbling, run a table knife (or wooden skewer) through the batters in a swirling motion.
5. Bake, rotating the pan halfway through, until a cake tester comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. Transfer pan to a rack to cool 10 minutes. Turn out cake from pan and cool completely on the rack. Cake can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.

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