Hi, my name is Shida. I am just your regular SAHM (stay-at-home-mum) who finds joy in cooking and baking for her small family. To me, baking is something that I do at a leisurely pace. Baking, which I have discovered to be extremely calming and therapeutic helps deviate my mind away from the hustle and bustle of a mum’s life. Apart from cooking books and instructional videos on YouTube, Instagram has been my main source of inspiration.
Flashback to my childhood years, for as long as I could remember, my mum baked and sold cakes on the side to supplement our family’s income. As the eldest child, I was inadvertently roped in to assist with kitchen duties and baking preparations. She turned her kitchen into a mini bakery every Ramadhan, and had the whole house filled with the wafting aromas of various types of cakes and cookies. I guess it is fair to say that all those years of observation and “training” has proven to be beneficial after all.
One of my mum’s bestselling cakes was her Marble Cake. Families and friends loved it! Honestly, there was something uniquely different about hers that was incomparable to others that I have tasted. This cake is fairly popular and commonly found in most Malay households during Hari Raya. So what makes it special, you ask? Wak Hawa’s cake (as people called it) was silky soft and moist, yet it is light on the palette. With every bite, you kept wanting for more.
Unfortunately, she was taken ill a few years back and life was never the same again. Ever since I got married, I have learnt to bake my own Hari Raya goodies but somehow I still longed for my childhood favourites from mum. Sometime last year, I had chanced upon her torn and tattered, ‘ancient looking’ recipe book, piled in one corner of her kitchen amongst her other kitchenware. I had this immense craving to recreate her Marble Cake and with mum’s blessings, I began to embark on my baking adventures, armed with the knowledge I had gained while I was her kitchen assistant.
I am a firm believer in shared knowledge, unless it is confidential. This recipe is easy enough for anyone to try it out at home. All you need is practice, lots of patience and eager taste testers. With the festivities drawing near, I hope you get to test out this recipe and share it with your loved ones.
Marble Cake
Ingredients:
227g butter
170g caster sugar
¼ tsp salt
5 eggs (grade AA)
1 tsp ovalette
190g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1½ tbsp condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp chocolate emulco
1 tsp strawberry emulco
Pink gel colouring (optional)
Method:
1. Preheat oven at 170°C. Line and grease a 7x7x3 square cake pan. Set aside.
2. Sift flour and baking powder. Set aside.
3. Using a hand/ stand mixer, beat butter, sugar and salt at medium high speed till light and fluffy (about 5 mins)
4. Add in the ovalette and eggs (one at a time) and mix until well combined.
(Don’t worry if it curdles. End result will look fine once the flour is well incorporated.)
5. Lower the speed and add in the flour and baking powder mixture slowly and mix well till incorporated.
6. Lastly, add in the vanilla essence and condensed milk. Whisk for a while until just combined. (Do not overbeat)
7. Divide the batter into 3 portions. Make sure there is more white batter than coloured ones. I used a ceramic ladle; poured 1 scoop for the white first, then divide the rest into 3 equal parts.
8. Add the chocolate emulco for the chocolate batter. And the strawberry emulco and a little pink gel colouring for the strawberry batter.
9. Pour the batter into prepared pan alternately, starting with the white until finish.
10. Using a butter knife, make a few swirls. (Do not overdo it)
11. Bake in preheated oven at 170°C for about 45-50 mins or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
12. Once baked, cool the cake in the pan for about 10 minutes before transferring it onto a wire rack. Let cool completely before serving.
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