A couple of people have asked if I could post the recipe for the cake I made when Liberty and I got together the other week and who am I to refuse? Cake is one of the greatest joys in life and Marble Cake has always been one of my favourites because it’s just so pretty and fun AND it’s dead easy to make too 🙂 The basic recipe is one from Mary Berry’s Fast Cakes book and it’s really simple to tweak to your own preferences – a great hit with kids for birthdays…and big kids who just like cake…

Basic Ingredients:

6 oz / 175g soft margarine

6 0z/ 175g caster sugar

6oz/ 175g self-raising flour

1½ level teaspoons baking powder

3 eggs

1 level tablespoon cocoa/hot chocolate powder

Optional Ingredients:

Food colouring of your choice – whatever colour and however many

2 oz/ 50g Chocolate drops

2 oz/ 50g sultanas/dried fruit

Any other flavourings you fancy…

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4 and grease and line with greaseproof paper an 8″/20cm round cake tin.

Put the margarine, sugar, flour, baking powder and eggs in a bowl and beat together until the mixture is well blended and smooth.

Separate the mixture out into as many different bowls as you want colours/flavours in your cake.

If you are using cocoa, mix it with a tablespoon of hot water to make a smooth paste before adding it to one of your bowls of mixture and stirring it in. If you’re using hot chocolate powder just chuck it in the mixture and stir lots!

In your other bowls add a few drops of food colouring and mix until you get the colour you desire.

I like to put white chocolate chips in the chocolate cake mix and milk chocolate chips in the plain sponge mixture but you can do whatever you like really!

Next put your cake mixture into your tin a spoonful at a time. Do a spoon of each type of mix as you go round so that they alternate throughout the cake.

Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes until the sponge is well risen and golden brown and the top springs back when lightly touched with your fingertips.

Turn it out to cool on a wire rack and then ice or decorate as required! – I melted a Milk Chocolate Scot block and drowned my cake in it, then melted some white chocolate and drizzled that on top of that and then liberally sprinkled the top with mini marshmallows…