Chocolate Orange Marble Cake – my mum’s amazingly delicious marble loaf cake with rich chocolate glaze. You can vary the flavours and icing to your taste.
Try also… my Chocolate Orange Cake
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I have my mum to thank for my love of cooking and baking. I grew up helping her and my yiayia (grandma) in the kitchen before I got too cool for such humdrum activities.
And although my mother is a formidable cook that tackles complicated recipes when the fancy takes her, it is this everyday marble cake recipe that sticks in my mind.
This recipe, titled ‘simple cake’ in my mum’s Greek cookery bible, was baked on both on special occasions and on weekday evenings.
My mum varied the recipe a lot – sometimes making a vanilla cake with a white glaze, more often a chocolate marble cake with rich chocolate icing.
It doesn’t matter what form the cake took though, it was always indescribably soft, fragrant and delicious. I wanted to share a recipe of my mum’s that is special to me for Mother’s Day… and I knew it HAD to be this simple marble pound cake.
So I emailed my mum to ask for the recipe and she send me a photo from her cookery book.
And this is where I realised my mum’s genius for baking. Because the recipe in the book doesn’t read like a recipe, it’s more like general cake guidelines: 3-4 eggs, 1 bag of flour, 1 teacup butter…
My mum’s note in her email said ‘as you can see this calls for too much flour – use less!’ But fear not… I have managed to navigate these rather obscure instructions to produce the very cake my mum used to make. And it is just as fluffy and delicious as I remember it.
Post a photo on my Facebook page, share it on Instagram, or save it to Pinterest with the tag #supergoldenbakes and make my day!
Chocolate Orange Marble Cake
Ingredients
- 320 g (2 ½) cups flour plain / all purpose flour
- 180 g (scant 1 cup) sugar
- 150 g (1 stick + 3 tbsp) unsalted butter softened
- 120 ml (½ cup) orange juice or blood orange juice
- 60 ml (¼ cup) whole milk
- 4 eggs separated
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- ½ tsp salt
- zest 2 oranges
For the glaze
- 175 g (1 cup) dark chocolate chips
- 180 g (¾ cup) cream double /heavy cream
- 2 tbsp golden syrup or honey
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C | 350F. Line a large loaf tin with baking paper letting the paper hang over the edges.
- In a stand mixer, whisk the egg whites and salt until you have stiff peaks. Transfer to another bowl and set aside.
- Put the butter and sugar in the stand mixer bowl (no need to clean). Beat the butter and sugar for several minutes until creamy and white. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides as you mix.
- Add the egg yolks, one at a time, waiting until each is blended in before adding the next.
- Combine the orange juice, milk, zest, vanilla extract and bicarbonate of soda in a measuring jug. The soda will cause the mixture to froth slightly.
- Alternate adding the flour and orange mixture while mixing at low speed. Stir in the baking powder.
- Gently fold in the whisked egg whites, in stages, with a large spatula until the batter is smooth.
- Transfer 3/4 of the batter into the prepared tin. Mix the rest of the batter with the cocoa powder until smooth.
- Feather the cocoa batter mixture into the cake using a knife to create the marbled effect, making sure it is mixed in well.
- Bake for 45m – 1 hour until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.
- Put the chopped chocolate in a small bowl. Heat the cream and golden syrup until almost boiling then pour over the chocolate.
- Leave to stand for a couple of minutes then stir until silky smooth. Pour or spread over the cooled cake and serve immediately.
Nutritional Info
Cathy says
Cake was full of flavor of chocolate and orange for sure. The method was a little more complex than your basic blend the whet with the dry method, however really rose high! Only thing was it was a bit wet when I kept checking from 45 – 60 min and ended up a bit dry.
Due to the height in the middle I think that is why it was misleading my judgment a bit- but would make again and bake close to 50 min
Louise | Cygnet Kitchen says
I think I could eat that glaze by the spoonful :-O This looks delicious Lucy! I can see why its a family favourite x
Choclette Blogger says
This looks wonderful Lucie. Sort of weird to see it all written in Greek, I think of marble cake as a very British cake, but I have no idea why.
Sarah Montgomery says
I can see why it's special to you, it looks incredible and I bet there wouldn't be a crumb left!
Janice Pattie says
That looks so good, gorgeous flavour combination and such a pretty marbled effect.
Beachhutcook says
Such a warming post and a great cake recipe. I too have my Mum to thank for my love of cooking and eating. She made everything warm and cozy. I miss her hugely and I know she would have loved this whole blogging thing. Elinor x
Lucy Parissi says
Oh that's must be so hard…
I know my mum is very proud of the 'whole blogging thing' even though it took her a while to get her head around it.
Hannah Hossack-Lodge says
Your mum must be very talented to be able to bake such a beautiful cake from such a vague recipe! My mum taught me to bake too, she used to make the most amazing gingerbread houses (mansions really!) at Christmas and even taught an after school baking class for a while 🙂 x
Lucy Parissi says
I can totally see that – you are a very talented baker yourself 🙂
Sophie S says
The top of this is stunning!
Julia@Vikalinka says
You really do need to know how to bake in order to pull off such beauty from that recipe! Lovely cake, Lucy! I learned how to cook and how to enjoy it from my mum as well. Her food was always miles better than all of my friends' mums around. 😉
Lucy Parissi says
I think once you grow up with lovely food you definitely don't want to settle for anything less!
Annu says
Hi I halved the recipe and the cake was over in minutes… such a lovely cake…
To make this original recipe I dont have a bread loaf tin such big… can I bake this in a normal 8 inch round tin.