Marble cake

The other day we were all at home, the weather wasn’t really appropriate to hit the beach and with all of us lazing around (not a frequent occurrence in our household!), I thought of the proverbial afternoon cake.

As my daughter likes sponge cakes and the like, I remembered this old-time family classic – marble cake – and got down to business.

It’s simple, straightforward and I filmed the procedure (in a very amateurish way!) in my Instagram stories. For those of you who have the What’s Cooking in Dubrovnik cookbook – it’s also there.

Marble cake

• 120 g butter, room temperature (+1 tablespoon for greasing the pan)
• 4 eggs (separate 3 egg yolks and whites)
• 200 sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 150 g Greek yoghurt (or regular or 12.5% sour cream or 10 tablespoons cold milk)
• 250 g all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
• cocoa powder

Mix butter and add 3 egg yolks one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition. Add the sugar, vanilla sugar, one whole egg and a pinch of salt. Mix for about 10 minutes until fluffy.

Turn the mixer off, preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and butter a 24-cm bundt pan. Set aside.

Fold in the Greek yoghurt, flour, and baking powder.

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold them gently into the batter, so as to retain maximum air inside the batter.

Divide the batter into two equal parts and sift the cocoa powder into one half.

Spoon the batter into the prepared bundt pan, alternating between the two batters. Then insert a skewer in the batter and swirl it around a bit.

Bake the cake for 45 minutes, invert it onto a cooling rack and if desired sprinkle with powdered sugar or chocolate icing.