ABC - Mocha-Almond O'Marble Cake

The Mocha-Almond O'Marble Cake is our third ABC of the Month recipe from Flo Braker's book, Baking for all Occasions.

This recipe was chosen by Wafae and boy, did she pick a winner. This is an easy and delicious cake. You start with a light-colored batter that's almond flavored. You take 2/3 of the batter and pour into a baking pan. The remaining 1/3 of the batter is mixed with chocolate syrup and a bit of instant espresso powder. Pop it in the oven and let the cake do its magic and basically marble itself. You don't believe it? Ha! I didn't believe it either but the picture below doesn't lie :o)

The chocolate batter (and gravity, I guess) created this pattern all by itself. I didn't swirl it at all. Cool huh?

The recipe calls for a Pullman loaf pan. This is basically an extra long loaf pan with straight sides. It also says that you can bake it in a Bundt pan. I decided to use 2 loaf pans instead so I could take one whole loaf to work on Monday. It was a big hit both at home and at work.

On their way to the oven... I was convinced the cake would come out 75% light, with a flat chocolate layer on top.

After the cakes came out of the oven, I was still convinced there would be no marbling... what's that expression again about not judging a book by its over? :o)

I made a couple changes. Instead of almond extract I used a smaller amount of almond oil. The other change I made was to use homemade chocolate syrup instead of Hersheys. I don't normally have chocolate syrup around the house so I didn't want to buy a bottle for just one recipe. When I came across Alton Brown's recipe for Chocolate Syrup, I knew that that would work really well too. I scaled the recipe way down and made 20% (which yielded 1 cup).

HELLO marbling! It works, it works!! Ho hum... I would like to take this opportunity to apologize profusely to Flo Braker for doubting her!! :o)

Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby and I loved this cake. The almond flavor complemented the chocolate really well. I couldn't taste the espresso much (which was good for me as I don't like coffee). The cake itself was moist and the chocolate part was even more moist and almost fudgy. Hubby gave this cake a 9 out of 10.
• The homemade chocolate syrup was great and so easy to make. I normally don't buy chocolate syrup but now I won't for sure. Lots of chocolate flavor from high-quality Dutch cocoa, very little corn syrup (which can be substituted with honey, if desired) and fat-free. You can find the recipe for it HERE.
• If you'd like to give this recipe a try, you can find the recipe for it HERE.
• Don't forget to check out the ABC blog roll: Wafae and Chaya.
• If you have the book or have easy access to the book and would like to join us, please feel free to email me. You can find my email address on my Profile page.