chocolate-vanilla marble cake: memories last a lifetime

This. cake. is. awesome. This cake, it's my childhood. So it may not be the absolute prettiest nor the most melt-in-your-mouth sweet ever, but I love this cake so much. Probably more for nostalgic reasons more than anything else. This is my grandmother's cake. This is the cake she made for us just about every week because it was always devoured in about four days. I loved picking at the "crust", or bottom actually, when it came straight out of the oven as that is my favorite part. She would always get mad at me and slap me on the hand. The cake never changed and we always looked forward to it. Every. single. time.

But my grandmother is quite old now, though still friggin' stubborn when we tell her to rest when all she wants to do is clean or wash dishes. She can't see much though so making cake isn't really one of her pastimes anymore. So for the first time ever (after being the one who got to lick the batter for 25 years or so) I made this cake. This cake is seriously the perfect snack cake. When I was a kid and my friends used to come over, they ALL used to ask for a slice. And as I got older and my friends from high school would hang out at my place, they would STILL ask for it. Some of them still talk about it.

It's simple, but oh so tasty! Just remember to grease your Bundt pan very well (and not only slightly like I did) because your cake WILL stick to the pan! Hence, why I don't have any pictures of the whole final product. Me sometimes stupid. It still tastes good!

Gateau Grand-Maman 1-2-3-4

Ingredients

1 cup butter or margarine, melted

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 cup milk

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 tbsp baking powder

3 tbsp cocoa powder

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a Bundt pan. Melt the margarine and set aside.

Either in a large bowl or using an electric mixer, whisk the eggs and sugar for 3-4 minutes to let the eggs make air bubbles and help your cake rise better. (Note: whenever you add sugar to eggs, it's very important to start beating right away and never let the sugar just sit on top of the eggs otherwise the eggs will cook!) Add milk and then the melted margarine.

If you're using an electric mixer, stop it, pour the flour and baking powder in and mix into the batter just a little so when you turn it on the flour doesn't explode in your face :p Mix the flour until just incorporated and there are no lumps. Do not mix for too long otherwise the gluten in the flour will start to develop.

Pour 3/4 of the batter into the Bundt pan and then add the cocoa powder into the remaining batter. Pour the cocoa batter on top of the first batch and use a knife to make small swirls and make a marble pattern.

Bake about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool on wire rack about 15 minutes and invert onto a cake platter. Yum!

(Notice the bit that I picked off? hehe)