German Marble Cake

“Would ye both eat your cake and have your cake?”

Before I say anything else, you should all be informed that I am not by any stretch of the imagination a cake person. I prefer pie in almost every desert situation. I can count the number of times in my memory that I have had a cake for my birthday on one hand. Once I had cherry tarts, and another time waffles with vanilla ice cream and cherry pie filling. Almost always, though, it is plain old pie. And, though marriage would not appear to be in my immediate future, I often contemplate whether the challenges that would attend supplanting the traditional cake with a wedding pie would be worth it. I haven’t figured out the logistics yet, but I think it would.

Despite my deep-seated and long-standing allegiance to the pie, I felt possessed about a week and a half ago to bake a cake. Desiring something tasty, attractive, and serve-able to company, I settled on a recipe for German marble cake from AllRecipes.com. I made a few slight alterations to the original, based on advice gleaned from the comment section (less flour, more cocoa.) The finished product was not half-bad, but I couldn’t make myself love it (my differences with cake, I must surmise, are irreconcilable.) It is a fairly dry cake, so I recommend a glaze to go on it. A scoop of ice cream (or two) will render it even more edible.

***

German Marble Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 5 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 5 egg whites
• 3 tablespoons sweet cocoa

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 10 inch tube pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter with the sugar. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla. Continue beating for 10 minutes.
3. Gradually stir in flour, alternating with splashes of milk, until all of the flour and milk are mixed in. Stir in baking powder.
4. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites. Fold egg whites into batter.
5. Reserve 1/4 of the batter, and pour the rest into a greased, floured tube pan.
6. Mix cocoa into the remaining 1/4 of the batter. Then turn into tube pan, and fold under with a fork to produce a marbled appearance.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.