My Mocha Marble Madeira Cake ♡

Hello!
(◕ᴥ◕)
It's Friday and I'm grateful, and no its not that I necessary restrict my gratitude to one day of the week (aka the start of the weekend!), but I am prone to a little bit of complaining every now and then (oops). That's why I decided a few weeks ago that I was going to make a conscious effort to be more positive, as in waking up in the morning and being like 'hell yeah, I got this!' rather than 'oh no, let me go back to bed'- its a work in progress, but I'm doing alright. 
So I'm grateful for a lot of things; my family and friends, the fact that I have a roof over my head and a warm home, that I'm living, breathing and all that good stuff. الحمد لله Oh and on a lighter note, today I'm also grateful for my clothes order that arrived, the fact that I have no exams (not envious of my uni friends sitting January exams), my new books and this incredible cake and custard I have in front of me (the little things count too, okay?)

Now without blowing my own trumpet, this cake is really good. 
The reason I say that is because I initially started out with a cookbook recipe but I ended up tweaking so many things that by the time I was done it was unrecognisable. So when I put it into the oven I was thinking that this may turn out quite wrong, but alas that wasn't the case! In fact I like the result enough to share it with you lovely people, bonus. 
Now for a little bit of back story - my dad (who loves Madeira cake) was convinced that it originated from Portugal and that settlers brought it over here. Instead it turns out that it comes from much closer to home, not quite so exotic. Either way I was 'commissioned' (lol) to recreate this cake and I thought to put a twist to the traditional by introducing marbled coffee/chocolate (mocha!) to the plain madeira and so this recipe was born. 

To make it you will need a few ingredients:

1. 175g caster sugar
2. 175g butter / Margarine
3. Three eggs
4. 250g self-raising flour
5. 1/2 tsp baking powder
6. Lemon
7. Vanilla flavouring
8. Powders - coffee / cocoa / mocha

To start with preheat your oven to Gas Mark 4, then measure out the butter/margarine (you can use entirely butter or entirely margarine or as I prefer, half and half; the marg lends a lighter springy texture to the sponge whilst the butter offers moisture and flavour) 

To this add in your caster sugar and cream both ingredients together   using a hand/stand mixer (or a good old wooden spoon) until light, fluffy and well combined.

Mix in one teaspoon of vanilla flavouring aka vanilla essence

Now crack in the eggs one at a time whisking well after each addition. A small tip - add one tblsp of flour with the final egg to stop the mixture from curdling.

Now back to the self raising flour, we require 250g of the stuff to be sifted into mixture.
Side note, I ran out of flour upon measuring out 124g and had to wait for at least thirty minutes before I got some more! 

When you finally have the right quantity of sieved flour, tip it into your mixture along with a 1/2 tsp of baking powder and give this all a good stir using a wooden spoon.

Now for the chocolate powdery goodness! Grab your coffee and cocoa powder, I used the Bournville one because its great.. also look at my vintage cocoa shaker, not actually vintage but I adore the way it looks, I use it to sprinkle cocoa on to my whipped cream hot choc!
I also used some mocha chocolate powder that I got from Harrods, once again isn't the tin just so pretty. Yeah, I have a thing for nice packaging and containers, oh and crockery. 

It was also raining whilst I baked this cake, my favourite baking weather, how melancholic. 

Anyway, back to the recipe! Add about 2 1/2 tblsp of the cocoa powder along with 1 tsp of coffee granules and 1 tsp of mocha powder. Then pour in enough boiling water that upon stirring results in a thick chocolatey paste. 

Then take a little over a third of the cake batter and mix the chocolate paste into it, until everything is well combined. There is no exact measurement of cake batter to add at this point so feel free to add more or less depending on the amount of chocolate you want in you cake.

Now back to the plain batter - add half a lemon's worth of zest and a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice, give everything a final mix.

And now for the penultimate and most exciting stage (apart from the eating!), add spoonfuls of your mixture to your lined cake tin, alternating with chocolate and plain batter. You can layer or dollop the batter in like I did, the reason being that I wanted the chocolate to mostly be at bottom with a plain top so that when you cut into into - surprise!

Then using a skewer swirl the mixture around to create the marble effect.

Pop the tin into the oven and cook the cake until golden brown and an inserted skewer comes out clean, around 30 minutes although I never set a timer, just keep an eye on the cake and take it out when I feel that its ready.  

Leave it to cool in the tin for a short while and when you can wait no longer, slice up and consume! Or if you going to give it to someone, attempt to exhibit strong self-control until it falters and eat it anyway

You can eat it any way you like, serve with cream and a sprinkle of cocoa or submerge like a cake ship sinking in a sea of hot custard.

😋

Enjoy!

 Q x