Ninja Notes on Chocolate Marble Cake Baking, #The Cake Slice Bakers

The Cake Slice Bakers are a group of bakers from around the world. Currently, the challenge is to bake one of four preselected Carole Walter's Great Cakes recipes.  

Zach's Chocolate Marble Cake was this Ninja Baker's winning choice.

Carole Walter’s Great Cakes’ recipes are great teaching tools for baking ninjas who want to improve their skills. Zach’s Chocolate Marble Cake is no exception. I was able to successfully bake a moist, crumbed cake with a gooey chocolate ganache topping. Dense and wholesome, the texture was fine and works well with chocolate. (What doesn't, right?) I confess it's not my favorite cake. I like a lighter touch. Still, I learned heaps. Here are my ninja notes on chocolate marble cake baking. 

Samurai swords are not just for fighting.

Ninjas are always primed for successful outcomes: Steal the mise en place trick from the French.  Mise en place means “putting in place” your ingredients and setting yourself up for a culinary win. Many recipes call for softened butter but fail to mention that if you add cold eggs, flour or milk to the mix – little hardened pellets will appear in the cake. Our mission as cake ninjas is to achieve a soft crumb. So, make sure eggs, flour, milk and butter are at room temperature.

Coffee liqueur was nixed in favor of espresso in this Ninja Baker's
version of  chocolate marble cake. 

Footprints in the dust are fatal: Stealthy ninjas never leave evidence behind. Coat your pans generously with Baker’s Joy (or similar products.) Then apply a liberal sprinkling of panko breadcrumbs to ensure an easy exit for the cake out of the pan. (Seek  breadcrumbs so fine and tasteless that your cake eaters won’t even know it exists.)

Ninjas are patient:  Taking many minutes to whip air into butter and sugar is worth it. Why? Aerated cake batter rises better.

A ninja cut into cake reveals a chocolate marble.

Swords and weapons are used sparingly: Ninjas were originally hired as spies. Their renown for assassin work came later. As ninjas needed to travel light, they relied on a sparse stash of metal darts with poison tips. For this Ninja Baker, when twirling two colors of cake batter together, it’s tempting to go a bit crazy with my knife. We baking ninjas must restrain ourselves and selectively choose the spots we wish to swirl.

The gooey  semisweet chocolate ganache may be one of
the best things about cake.
Are you a cake or icing person?

Ninja Note P.s. Pound cake batters and other heavier mixtures tend to work best for marbling. For Zach’s Marble Chocolate Cake, I scooped out a cup of vanilla batter. Added melted (and slightly cooled) semisweet chocolate into the cup. I poured half of the remaining vanilla batter into the bottom of the pan. Carefully covering the vanilla edges, I drained the cup of chocolate batter atop the vanilla. Tipping the cake bowl, I emptied the remaining vanilla cake batter on top of the chocolate….Then, the knife came out. It was plunged into the pan and slightly twirled to inspire a pattern.

Click here for the recipe and tell me your ninja baking secrets!