Because She Asked Nicely

Offspring #2 came home from daycare the other day telling me all about a very beautiful birthday cake that one of the other little girls had bought in to share. For the first couple of days I all really got was that it was a cake and that it was very beautiful and that #2 would very much like one when it was her birthday. Gradually more details were made available. The first piece of information to break through was that the cake was pink. Well that was a no-brainer - anything pink is very beautiful in #2's world. Then I was told that it also had white and chocolate in it. I queried the chocolate part. Was it chocolate like chocolate frogs or chocolate like a chocolate cake? Apparently it was like in a chocolate cake. Then came the final clue. The colours in the cake were all "messied up". AHA - a marble cake. I could see the appeal for three year olds. Lots of lovely colours swirled through each slice of cake and everyone's slice being just a little bit different to the other kids in the group.

Today she woke up and asked if we could please make a cake just like her friends. And, since I had many house-hold chores I didn't want to do, I promptly agreed that we could. Unfortunately the chores couldn't be ignored entirely so we didn't get to the cake-making until late afternoon but that worked out rather well after all. The cake was still warm when we finished dinner and it was decided that a slice of warm cake and a scoop of ice-cream would be the perfect way to end the meal. I'll see what I can do about icing the rest of the cake tomorrow!

Marble Cake

from The Margaret Fulton Cookbook (2006 edition)

125g butter

1 cup caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 eggs

2 cups self raising flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup milk

2 tablespoons cocoa

2 tablespoons boiling water

red food colouring

Preheat the oven to 180C. Brush a deep 20cm cake tin with a little melted butter and line the base with baking paper. Cream the butter and gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla until light and creamy. Beat the eggs lightly, and add to the creamed mixture gradually. Sift the flour and salt and fold into the creamed mixture alternately with the milk. Divide the mixture into 3 portions.

Sift the cocoa and blend in the boiling water. Stir this into one portion of the cake mixture. To the other portion, add a few drops of red food colouring to colour it pink. The third portion is left plain. Drop the mixture by tablespoons into the prepared tin, alternately pink, plain and chocolate. Run a knife through gently a few times to marble the mixture. Bake for 50 - 60 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.