This marble sponge cake is another Caribbean dessert favorite. Popular atbirthday parties and around Christmas time, this deliciously moist and butterycake is the perfect treat.
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My fondest memories of any kind of party included havingcake. And I don't mean the birthday cake for the celebrant.
I'mtalking about the cake that they serve you a few slices during the party or theysend you home with, in your snack box.
This type of cake is alsopopular around Christmas time and might be referred to as Christmas sponge cake.If people don't want to eat someblack cake/rum cakethen they can get a slice of plain cake instead.
So here I am sharingwith you not just a Caribbean sponge cake recipe, but one that you can easilyturn into a marble sponge cake by adding some colors.
It's adelicious marble cake recipe, that you can make at just about the same time youwill make a box cake.
This basic sponge cake recipe is a greatafter-dinner treat. In this recipe, we turn a basic plain sponge cake into acolorful treat.
What is marble sponge cake?
For us Caribbean folks, a sponge cake is a light and moist yellow cakemade with flour, sugar, eggs, and baking powder.
This classicfavorite is also amped up with colors to make a marble sponge cake. We are acolorful set of people, so we grab pinks and some greens and add them to ourcake batter, and then mix it up and make it marble.
Sometimes youmight just see colors of vanilla and chocolate too. But for our Trini spongecake, we resort to colors like it's carnival.
Ingredients for sponge cake
To make the traditional plain cake, the ingredients are pretty basic.
- Granulated sugar - If you have brown sugar, you can use that, it will just make the color of the original batter a little darker.
- Unsalted butter -You need your butter to room temperature. So make sure to take it out a few hours before or even overnight.
- Flour.
- Baking powder.
- Eggs.
- Vanilla essence.
- Nutmeg.
- Cinnamon powder.
Then to turn this into a colorful marble cake:
Equipment
- Hand blender | Electric mixer.
- Large bowl.
- Spatula.
- Cake pans (2 8' inch pans).
- Wire rack.
How to make marble sponge cake
I think making this cake is pretty easy. It's a simple recipe with theregular basic steps for making a sponge cake.
Make sure to check outthe tips and tricks area to learn some things to avoid that I learned whiledoing a few tries of this recipe.
Grease your cake pan(s) well andset aside. I normally use two regular 8-inch pans. And turn your oven on so itcan preheat. Make sure you grease well with either butter alone, butter andflour, or parchment paper.
In your mixing bowl with the paddleattachment, cream sugar, and butter together until combined.
Then addyour eggs to the creamed butter mixture one at a time, making sure toincorporate them well into the mixture. Also, add your vanilla.
In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients of flour (sifted), bakingpowder, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
Take your flour mixture add it to the creamed butter mixture andcombine well.
So this is now the cake batter as if we were making aCaribbean sponge cake recipe.
How to make a marble sponge cake?
Now we want to make this into a marble sponge cake. So to transform itfrom a plain cake recipe, we are going to add some color.
We willseparate the batter and then recombine it with the different colors.
Ilike having three colors in my marble. The original "yellow cake" and then twoother colors. I know some people prefer just to have plain vanilla and chocolatebut we grew up with colors.
Separate the mixture into three separatebowls. Add two different colors separately to the two bowls and mix well. Makesure the color is evenly distributed.
In your cake pan, take a cupful of one color and drop it in onearea. From another color, take a cupful and drop it next to the first amount.Then from the third color, drop some batter.
Repeat this until thepan has all the batter from the three bowls. Make sure it is not filled morethan 3/4 way up.
Once this is done, you can take a rubber spatula or a thin knife andcreate a swirl pulling all three colors around in the pan to make a marbleeffect.
You can take it from the bottom and bring up the batter tothe top, then swirl the pan around with a knife in the batter.
Place into the preheated oven, on the middle rack, and bake for 40 minutes. It's ready when, using a butter knife or a wooden pick, it comes out clean from the center and the cake has left the sides of the pan. If the pick comes out with wet dough still then give it a little extra time to finish up. About 5 minutes.
Take it out of the oven, and let the cake cool for about 10 - 15 minutes. Then remove it from the pans, place it on a cooling rack, and let it continue to cool.
How to store marble sponge cake
Once fully cooled, you want to store this delicious cake in a coolarea.
I like to wrap it with plastic wrap which helps to keep thecake moist while stored. It stays very well, once wrapped, on the counter for upto five days.
After that five days, or even before if you wish, placethe properly wrapped cake in the fridge.
It is good for up to a week,once you continue to make sure it's wrapped tightly. Or you can place it in anairtight container like a cake pan.
What to eat with marble sponge cake?
I love, love love this cake when warm, all by itself. Then cooled, it'samazing with some ice cream like vanilla orsoursop.
You can also use the actual sponge cake, after baking, to make anice cream cake of layered ice cream and cake.
It's also great to pair with some drinks. Grab a glass ofmaubyor a nicenon alcoholic fruit punch.
Why is my sponge cake rubbery?
Cakes can get rubbery from overmixing. Flour has gluten and this isactivated when mixed. If it is overmixed and the gluten is activated too muchthen the cake will become rubbery and hard.
So make sure to not mix too much, especially the butter and the sugar. Usebutter at room temperature.
Also, make sure to notoverbake.
Tips for making Trini sponge cake
* Do not fill pans up past 3/4 way. I had an accident with one ofmy testing of this recipe where the cake rose well over the edge of the panmaking a big mess. So remember that. Don't fill them all the way up. I alwaysget two pans worth of batter.
* Sift your flour. Sifting theflour (especially if using all-purpose flour) will help with making the cake alight cake.
* Make sure your ingredients are at room temperature.It's important to have this happen because ingredients that are at roomtemperature actually combine better together. Because they are warmer, they areable to create this even textured batter that is smooth and uniform.
Sally'sbaking addiction has some great tips onroom-temperature ingredients for baking.
* If you have a hand mixer, you can beat your eggs in aseparate bowl then pour the egg mixture into the creamed sugar and combine.
Makesure you crack your eggs one at a time into a cup and then into the bowl toavoid getting a bad egg and spoiling your whole batch.
* Make sure colors are mixed in well.When adding the food coloring to the separated batter, make a well in the middleand add some coloring, then add some at the top and mix. Make sure you get allthe coloring dispersed through the batter.
* If you are mixing and you see curdlingwhile mixing in your eggs, add a little flour to the batter. Using your mixer ata high speed when adding the eggs would help eliminate the curdling effect.
* Make sure you properly grease your pans.I normally do spray pans with Baker's Joy spray. You can also use parchmentpaper to line the pans or grease the pans and then flour them. Some people evengrease the pans add the parchment, then batter.
* Make sure there are no air bubbles in the batter.Sometimes you can get bubbles in your cake batter from too much mixing.Sometimes it's even from the baking powder in the mixture.
If you seebubbles after you put it into the pan (especially if just making a plain spongecake) you can drop the pan a few times on the counter to help push the airout.
* If you want to add additional flavor. For someextra flavor, you can add some lemon zest or orange zest to the mix.
* If you have cake flour. I always use all-purpose flour butyou can definitely use cake flour instead. I heard it gives a much lightersponge cake too. Cake flour is not 1 for 1 with all-purpose. You can get moreinformation with the substitution of flour from Southern living
Here are some more cake recipes:
- Cassava black cake
- Orange rum cake
- Pineapple upside-down cake
Here are some other Trinidadian desserts that you MUST try:
- Cheese paste sandwiches
- Trinidad chicken puffs
- Trinidad-style coconut tart
- Coconut sweet bread
