Mini Layer Cake
Monday, August 12, 2013
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My recipe today has little to do with marble cake, a genuine bonding that makes into a twist, I called it Mini layer cake which consist 3 different colors, Vanilla, chocolate and green tea. To tell you the truth, I always love the idea of marble cake, its looks beautifully moist with wonderful marbled effect and I have no doubt that the cake would make a magic charm to many people.
When it came to the reading, I find out the story behind the idea of marbling two different colored batters into a cake, it was begin from the nineteenth century Germany and finally marble cake made its way to America with German immigrants before the Civil War.
Originally, the cakes were marbled with molasses and spices, by 18th century a reflection of marble cake was first appears in an American cookbook, a new version perfectly created by marbling chocolate into the cake. The cake remained popular throughout the 19th and 20th centuries ever since. Isn’t that amazing!
Flashed-back to many years ago, when I was a little girl, the only cake that I know is marble cake as it always included in a goody-bag on every occasion that my parents invited, such birthday party, wedding party or even other celebrations, there must be a slice of marble cake besides other traditional cake.
For some reason, my mother has no interest into the baking of classic-modern cake, conversely, she has more passion into our Indonesian traditional cake, she can be a cooks storm when its turns to make Indonesian-traditional cake.
Well, this mini layer cake was actually a twisted recipe which is base on marbled cake, however, the only thing makes the cake different is the method of dragging the skewer/fork/butter knife through the batter to encourage it to swirl to make marbled effect.
I adapted the layer cake recipe from Rachel Allen Bake and I have an idea to color one parts of the batter with matcha green tea powder to make more exciting color combinations.
The basic step in making layer cake is mixing the cake batter of choice. Next, the batter is split into three parts and coloring added to both parts.
Depending on your desired idea, the parts may be equal or one fraction may be larger than the other to be as a base color. Lastly, the preferred method to make the layers is alternating ladles spoonful of each parts of the batter. I did swirl method to get marbling effect only on the surface of the cake just for pretty presentation
Mini Layer Cake
Makes 3 mini loaf pan
Ingredients
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup regular sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup milk
2 tablespoon cocoa powder, sifted
1 tablespoon matcha green tea powder, sifted
Direction
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), Gas mark 4. Butter and flour the sides of a 20cm (8in) diameter spring-form/loose-bottomed cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper *I use mini loaf cake pan 14,6 x 7,62 x 5,4
Cream the butter in a large bowl or in an electric food mixer until soft. Add the sugar and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.
Whisk the eggs and vanilla extract together in a small bowl. Gradually add the eggs to the butter mixture, beating all the time. Sift in the flour and baking powder and fold in gently to mix, then add the milk and mix gently to combine.
Divide the mixture between 3 bowls. Stir the cocoa powder into the batter in one of the bowls as well as matcha green tea powder stir into the batter of the bowls, so you would have separate bowls with 3 different colors, white batter ( vanilla *plain batter), chocolate batter (cocoa powder) and green batter (matcha green tea)
Place the cake mixtures batter into the prepared mini loaf pan by alternating spoonful of the vanilla batter, chocolate batter and green tea batter.
When all the batter mixture has been used up, you’ll need to ensure the base of the tin is fairly evenly covered, tap the bottom on your work surface to ensure that there aren’t any air bubbles.
Bake the cake for 45 mins until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, before removing onto a cooling rack and leave to cool.
