Marble in Reverse

This is one of my two go-to cakes from The Baking Bible:  a cake that I know people will like and one that's relatively easy to put together (although the layering and trenching prevents it from being on the Q&E list).  This cake didn't rise as high as on past occasions, and I'm guessing that it really does make a difference when the eggs aren't brought to room temperature first.  It was still good, though, and all 12 dessert plates were scraped clean.

I believe that you can find the genesis of this cake in a Heavenly Bakers blog post by our own Evil Cake Lady, in which she off-handedly mentions that maybe next time she makes a marble cake, she'll do two-thirds chocolate and one-third vanilla, and Rose excitedly comments that she's never heard of a reverse marble cake, but what a great idea!  And so a star is born.

This is my favorite bundt cake pan to use for the marble cake.

And these are the eggs that I forgot to take out of the refrigerator.  I warmed them for a few minutes in a bowl of water, but probably not long enough to bring them to room temperature.  I would never have thought that the temperature of eggs would make a difference in the outcome of a cake, but Rose says it can.

The basic batter is so smooth and lovely that you almost hate to add chocolate to it.

Almost, but not quite.

Notice that the cake pan is sitting on top of the scale, so I can easily add the right number of grams for each layer.  I love these moments of exactitude.  They make me feel I'm in charge.

And here's a picture of the trench that you make in the chocolate batter, into which you put the vanilla batter.

And so forth and so on until you run out of batter.

And then it's just a 45-minute bake.

Instead of pouring the glaze over the cake, I increased the recipe by 1 1/2 times and passed it separately, so everyone could ladle on just the right amount of delicious liquid chocolate.  Even though I made extra glaze, there was none left, so apparently I had a houseful of chocolate fanatics.

This is the amount that Jim put on his own piece.  Unfortunately, you can't really see the cake, which is a pity because marble cake is so attractive.  On the other hand, there was no bite left unglazed, and that's a plus.

Actually, everything about this cake is a plus.  If you make it once, I can almost guarantee you that you'll make it again.  And again.