Chocolate and Orange Blossom Marble Cake

I recently watched the Comic Relief Great British Bake Off and I was left in stitches at the celebrities attempts at baking, some highly skilled for amateur bakers, others clearly need to stick to their day jobs, mentioning no names - Jonathon Ross. It provided great entertainment nonetheless. The baking of the marble cake, left me with a hankering for some marble cake myself. So I set about googling marble cake. I came across a very easy recipe for the marble cake on the BBC Food website; so I used that recipe with a tweak or two from myself.

I find the BBC Food website is a fantastic outlet for cooking/baking ideas; and is great bedtime reading on the mobile version in bed.

Here's how I made my marble cake. Just in time for a weekend treat!

Ingredients

• 175g of soft butter
• 175g of caster sugar
• 3 free range eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 225g of self raising flour
• 2 tbsp of milk
• 1 tbsp of orange blossom
• Zest of an orange
• 2 tbsp of cocoa powder

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grease and line a loaf tin (or just use a silicone tin - they are all the rage now don't you know).
2. Cream the butter and the sugar with an electric whisk, until pale and fluffy.
3. Add the beaten eggs a little at a time whilst continuing to whisk. 
4. Whisk in the vanilla extract.
5. Sift in the flour and gently fold into the beaten egg, sugar, & butter mixture.
6. Divide the batter into 2 equal parts.
7. Sift the cocoa powder into one mixture and stir the orange blossom and orange zest into the second mixture.
8. Add large spoons of each mixture into the loaf tin, alternating to give a marble effect. I used a skewer to swirl the mixture a little for a more marbled pattern.
9. Bake in the centre of the oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Bake until a skewer comes out clean.
10. Allow to cool completely in the tin before turning out.
11. Enjoy with a big cup of tea or coffee.