Chocolate Orange Almond Marble Bundt Cake

Autumn has definitely arrived now in the Netherlands, and with that has come the first wave of colds and flu. Everyone seems to be ill, as was I this past week. I stayed home from class on Monday and Wednesday, and my lovely dad came over to bring me some groceries, so I could still, you know, eat. Quite important, after all.

I still wanted to bake something this week, though, but I didn’t want to make it too challenging or time-consuming, since I also had quite a lot of homework to do. So that meant the plan I had to make macarons this weekend fell through. Maybe next week!

Instead, I figured I’d make a marble bundt cake, because that seemed like fun. I didn’t want to go for the plain old vanilla and chocolate, so I soon came up with the idea of adding the almond to the batter, with some almond flavouring and some ground almonds. I also really love the combination of chocolate and orange, so I decided to go with those flavours for the two different batters.

It came out quite splendidly! It isn’t really all that marbled, at least not in these pictures, but that doesn’t really matter – it still looks cool and tastes absolutely delicious, and it’s such an easy batter to make!

You’ll need…

• 240 g butter (softened)
• 200 g white caster sugar
• 4 eggs (medium)
• 1 teaspoon almond flavouring
• 190 g plain flour
• 60 g ground almonds
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1 (large) orange (zest and 1½ tablespoon juice)
• 3½ tablespoons cocoa powder
• Bundt cake tin
• And an oven, of course! This cake needs to be baked at 170 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)

So, let’s get baking!

1. Mix together butter and sugar The first step is to mix together the sugar and the butter in a large bowl until it’s pale and fluffy. The butter needs to be softened at least, but you can also just melt it altogether, if you prefer. Mine was softened, and I used a handheld electric mixer to mix it together.

2. Add eggs and almond flavouring Once your butter and sugar are evenly mixed, add the eggs one by one, while mixing in between. Also add your almond flavouring at this point, and mix everything together again.

3. Add flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt Sieve the flour, ground almonds and baking powder above your bowl, and mix them through the batter with a spoon or spatula. Also add a pinch of salt. If you can’t get hold of ground almonds, you could also just use plain flour instead. I just liked to add that extra bit of almond-y goodness!

4. Divide batter over two bowls For a marble cake you need two different batters, so now it’s time to take a second bowl and transfer half of the batter to it.

5. Add cocoa powder to one bowl Take your first bowl sieve the 3½ tablespoons of cocoa powder above this bowl. Mix it all through until it’s nicely combined.

6. Add orange zest and juice to other bowl Now put your first bowl aside, and take the second bowl with the basic batter. Add to it all the zest from your orange, and 1½ tablespoon of the juice.

7. Transfer batters to bundt tin Grease your tin generously. Now take two spoons (one for each batter) and use them to dollop spoonfuls of the mixtures in the tin, alternating between the two batters. Once you’ve used up all of your batter, use the back of a fork (if it’s a thin fork) or a skewer and swirl it around the tin a few times to create the marble effect (which I didn’t do enough for mine).

8. Bake! Put the tin into your preheated oven and bake the cake for 40 to 45 minutes at 170 °C. Check if it’s done by inserting a skewer into the cake (it’s done when it comes out clean). Take it out of the oven and let it cool on a cooling rack. After about 15 minutes, you can (gently!) take your cake out of the tin and put it on a plate to let it cool completely.

And there you have it! Your own delicious chocolate orange almond marble bundt cake (quite the mouthful, isn’t it?). Enjoy!