My first Bundt - chocolate marble

Inspired by Rachel at Dolly Bakes' Bundt extravaganzas, I recently bought my first ever Bundt tin.  Now, I could never recreate Rachel's amazing big bundts, so I made a simple chocolate marble cake. This is the plainest Bundt tin you could find, but you have to start small!

My first Bundt tin

This is a Mary Berry recipe from her 'Baking Bible' book (page 108).

225g marg
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
225g self-raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1 1/2 tbsp hot water

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees (160 fan), gas mark 4.
Bung all the cake ingredients in a big bowl and stir until mixed.
Dot half the mixture into the tin with a teaspoon.
Mix the cocoa powder and hot water together until smooth (use a little more water if it's too dry), and mix into the remaining mixture. Dot the rest of this into the tin.
Swirl a little with a knife, smooth the surface, and bake in the oven for about 40 mins.

Out of the oven

To decorate, melt 150g dark choc in a bowl set over simmering water, together with 2 tbsp water and 100g butter. Once melted and smooth, pour over the cake and leave to set for about an hour.
Once set, melt 50g of milk choc, then drizzle or pipe over the cake in stripes.

Mary Berry says to grease then line the tin with strips of baking paper. This I did, but I don't think I would follow this approach again. It was really fiddly and time consuming, and naturally the straight lines of the paper couldn't match the curves of the tin, so the mixture spread into all the cracks. Once out of the tin, taking the paper off was tricky, as some parts were baked into the cake, and bits had to break off to remove the paper. I think in future I would just grease and flour the tin instead.

Adding the strips

Creases caused by baking paper

When it came to decorating the cake, I melted the milk choc too quickly and with too much heat, so it just went into a big ball of weird dry chocolate. Steve loved it and inhaled it, but it was no good for drizzling - so I just used chocolate strands instead. I think it still looked good.

Bundt cake like doughnut

Steve said it looked like a large doughnut. Which I think can only be a good thing.

My first foray into Bundt cakes was a success. Thanks to Dolly Bakes for the idea and the desire to make something a bit different. Although I will reserve such a cake for a special occasion in future - this recipe in particular is best eaten fresh - and the tin makes a lot of cake for just two people! Luckily my work colleagues happily helped us finish it...