Sunday recipe: Marble cake

A plain, unadorned marble cake is a thing of beauty and requires relatively little brain power

A marble cake is one of those rare things that looks beautiful in its plain, unadorned state. Like so many other baking endeavours, it looks impossibly complicated, but putting it together requires very little brain power, and its famed marbled effect is achieved with deceptive simplicity. 

As always, take out your unsalted butter and eggs so they are at room temperature. Preheat your oven to 180C/350F. Line a 9-inch tin with baking paper. 

Using a mixer on medium speed, beat 8oz unsalted butter until it looks pale. Add 8oz sugar and beat well until the butter and sugar are mixed well. Add four eggs one at a time, letting your mixer run in between each egg. Add 1tsp vanilla essence for that gorgeous vanilla aroma. On low speed, add 8oz plain flour with 2tsp baking powder. Turn off your mixer and mix in ¼ cup yoghurt with a spatula. Finish mixing your batter with a spatula and set aside.

Take out two identical plastic bowls. In one bowl, add ¼ cup cocoa powder and ¼ cup hot water. Mix well with a fork so that the cocoa powder has dissolved completely. Then divide the batter equally between the two bowls. (I use a kitchen scale to make sure they are equal.) Using a fork, incorporate the cocoa mixture thoroughly into the batter, so that at the end you have two bowls of separate batter. 

Using a tablespoon, add a blob of each batter alternately into your prepared pan. Place a vanilla blob on top of a chocolate blob, or vice versa, when you run out of space. Run a knife through the batter like a grid.

Bake at 180C/350F for 40 minutes. Depending on your oven, check after 30 minutes. Insert a clean toothpick to check if your cake is done. If it comes out clean, you’re good to go. Enjoy.