Marbré chocolat

The other day I had to make a cake that would travel well. Interestingly enough, there's a category of French desserts that are called 'gâteaux de voyage', or rather traveling cakes. These are generally drier, less complicated cakes that can withstand transport. Some examples of gâteaux de voyage include madeleines, lemon cake, pound cake, fruit cake, almond cakes, and pastries made with puff pastry dough and almond cream such as pithiviers or pain complet.

I decided to make a chocolate marbled cake. The recipe is quite simple. You make the batter, reserve a portion of it, and then add cocoa powder to the other portion.

After the two batters are ready, fill your lined cake mold two-thirds with successive layers of vanilla and chocolate batter. Interestingly enough, I didn't need to run a knife through the batters to marble them. Unlike brownies, that don't really rise, this cake rises a lot and the marbling is accomplished as the cake cooks.

The cake was not as buttery as I expected. I think next time I make a marbled cake, I'll use a pound cake recipe and add cocoa powder to half the batter.

Marbré chocolat:
Makes 1 large or 2 small molds (12 people)

250g butter
250g icing/powdered sugar
250g eggs
200g flour
50g corn starch
8g baking powder
2g vanilla extract
20g cocoa powder

Cream the butter and icing sugar. Add the eggs and the vanilla extract. Mix in the sifted flour, starch, and baking powder. Reserve half the mixture. Add the 20g of cocoa powder to the other half of the mixture. Fill a non-stick paper-lined cake mold two-thirds with successive layers of vanilla and chocolate batter. Bake at 200°C. As soon as the cake colors, check done-ness with a knife blade. If the blade is moist, continue to bake at 180°C until a knife blade comes out clean.