Marble in Reverse Cake

Well, the full title is “Marble in Reverse With Custom Rose Blend Ganache Glaze,” but I didn’t make the ganache glaze. So, it’s just Marble in Reverse cake. Or really, just marble cake, because it’s still a marble cake, even if most marble cakes are mostly vanilla, whereas this one is mostly chocolate. Why is that? Why are marble cakes vanilla with a little bit of chocolate thrown in? If you like chocolate, you probably prefer more chocolate over less, and if you don’t like chocolate, you probably want none of that chocolate business interfering with the purity of your vanilla. Then again, maybe you’re one of those indecisive types who just doesn’t have a favourite and doesn’t care that there’s more of one over the other, and just figure that variety is the spice of life, so stop with the philosophical discussions and just give me my damn cake so I can eat it!

*ahem* Where was I? Oh, right, cake!

This one could only be simpler without the marbling. First, make a basic sour cream cake. Mix together the dry ingredients, then add most of the sour cream and  the butter. Then add the egg mixture in two batches. Then take some out, and add the chocolate to the remainder.

I like to get everything measured out before I start mixing, so here’s my “mise en place”:

Of course, the downside to getting organized ahead of time:

Fortunately, they all go in the dishwasher. And when Jay was annoyed by the dishwasher being too full, he pulled out the mixer bowl and washed it. Or maybe he washed it because he needed it for mashing squash. Either way, score!

Remember way back when, when my Beater Blade snapped? Well, this is the first time I’ve needed the paddle beater since then. I did reach out to New Metro Design, and they offered to send me a replacement for the cost of shipping. I’ve been lazy, and hadn’t sent them a cheque. This weekend, I dropped a cheque in the mail, because the regular metal paddle blade is just painful, after having gotten so used to the beater blade. Scrape the bowl? Why would I need to scrape the bowl, when the mixer blade does it for me? Oh, right. Sadness and laziness. 😦

Once you’ve mixed up the batter, start layering – chocolate, vanilla, chocolate, vanilla, chocolate, vanilla, chocolate. Apparently, when you layer this many times, you don’t need to swirl it to make it all swirly. The act of baking makes it make neat patterns regardless.

As I said, I didn’t do the ganache glaze. I thought It’d be fine without it. Unsurprisingly, without a glaze or any icing on the cake, it was a little on the dry side, but the first couple of slices seemed to go down quite well with morning coffee/tea, and I gave slices to those on one of my teams that wanted some, then I took the rest to a planning meeting for my other team. My lone wolf developer got some, too. He did suggest that soaking it in brandy would make it a bit more moist.

Back to philosophical questions, raised by the picture from my cube shelf, above. Matt gave me a package of “vanilla cupcake” goldfish grahams quite a while back. I won’t go into the whys of that one, but I have a question about the what. Can something really be “cupcake” anything, without icing? Isn’t something that is cupcake flavoured, without icing, just a muffin? And if so, shouldn’t they be “vanilla muffin” goldfish grahams? Never mind how upset Reverend Graham would be at the use of his name on something so ludicrously unhealthy. “Vanilla Cupcake Grahams” does not sound like the type of bland food that one could use to “curb one’s sexual appetite.” (Wikipedia’s words, not mine 😉 )