Coffee Marble Cake with Almonds

My husband is super lucky.

Of course isn’t it? The fact that he gets to make food requests at will and in most of the cases I will usually oblige.

Last month, on his birthday he got to make one of this requests for a cake without frosting. That’s typically the way both of us like our cakes, although we do not shy away if the frosting is tastefully done and is not super sweet.

Being his birthday, I had to think of a way to make the cake both look and taste more interesting. I thought, a Marble cake would be the perfect way to go. Both of us are very fond of coffee flavor(s), so we decided to make it less chocolatey and more coffeish.

Vanilla Batter Ingredients:

• All-purpose flour- 1 cup (dry ingredient)
• Baking powder-1 teaspoon (dry ingredient)
• Baking soda-1/4 teaspoon (dry ingredient)
• Sugar- 1/2 cup
• Salt-1/4 teaspoon
• White oil/ melted butter-1/3 cup (80ml)
• Eggs-2
• Vanilla extract-2 teaspoon
• Whole milk-1/4 cup

Chocolate Coffee Batter Ingredients:

• All-purpose flour- 1 cup (dry ingredient)
• Baking powder 1 teaspoon (dry ingredient)
• Baking soda-1/4 teaspoon (dry ingredient)
• Sugar- 3/4 cup (to adjust the bitterness of cocoa powder and coffee)
• Salt-1/4 teaspoon
• White oil/ melted butter-1/3 cup (80ml)
• Eggs-2
• Cocoa powder-2 tablespoon
• Instant Coffee powder-2 tablespoon
• Warm Milk-1/3 cup
• Almond pieces-1/4 cup (chopped)
• Whole Almond (for garnishing)

Making & Baking Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F
2. Prepare the baking pan by lining the bottom with parchment/ baking paper.
3. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl for the first batter.
4. For vanilla batter– blend sugar+eggs+salt + vanilla extract. Then add white oil/melted butter at room temperature and blend till it becomes fluffy. Use a electric hand mixer for best results.
5. Now fold in the dry ingredients into the wet mixture in 2-3 parts. Use milk in between to adjust the consistency of the batter.
6. To make chocolate coffee batter- in a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients.
7. Repeat step 4, but add cocoa with (Sugar+salt+eggs+oil/butter)
8. In warm milk mix instant coffee, let it cool down then add that in the above step.
9. Repeat step 5 & fold in the almond pieces into the batter
10. Now the Vanilla & Coffee chocolate batter is ready.
11. In the ready baking pan, using a serving spoon lay out alternate dollops of batter (It’s almost like laying a brick wall, the bricks here being the dollops of batter). Make sure the final layer has both colored batters visible.
12. With a blunt knife/ toothpick/ bamboo skewer, swirl/ cut through the batters together throughout the pan for the marble design. Do not over swirl.
13. Tap the pan, so that the batter settles down evenly.
14. Garnish with whole almonds on the top.
15. Bake it in a preheated oven at 350F for 50 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
16. Cool it for 20 minutes and invert to bring it out from the baking pan. Cool it down completely before serving. You may use chocolate frosting if you like, but I personally prefer it without.