French Chocolate Marble Cake (Gâteau Marbré)
This decadent loaf cake features a chocolate-vanilla swirl encased in a crunchy chocolate-hazelnut rocher ganache.
The marble cake is enjoying a renaissance this year, and with that comes agonising over creating the perfect swirl. Marbling cakes has been around for a while, particularly in Germany where cakes - such as ‘Marmorkuchen’ - were marbled with dark molasses, the natural choice before the arrival of cocoa from the Americas. This marble cake takes the form of a loaf, and has a 50:50 swirl of chocolate and vanilla cake batter. As usual, I use a soured milk mixture which can be simply made with milk and lemon juice, owing a tender, light texture to cakes superior to buttermilk. Once baked, the loaf is good for slicing, but I highly recommend making a spectacle of it with a decadent rocher ganache, originally named after the rocky ‘rocher’ grotto of Lourdes, France, which simply combines chocolate, hot water and toasted hazelnuts. It’s too good to pass up! Let’s go!
