Easy Marbled Chocolate Cake

I saw this cake on the fabulous Iced Jems sight whilst I was away and, after my bad experience following other people's tutorials (ref: patchwork cakes), I thought I'd try it out for myself. In all fairness to iced Jems, the tutorial was pretty spot on..though I've mentioned a few things that I had issues with that she either didn't have trouble with, or just missed out.

YOU'LL BE NEEDING

3x bars of milk/dark chocolate
1x bar of white chocolate
1 round sponge cake
Chocolate butter cream

Grease proof paper
Sharp knife







STEP 1

Making the sponge and getting the butter cream on is always the boring bit of the cake for me. Luckily, with this cake, you just need the one layer of butter cream (make it thick) as you're going to have most of it hidden by the chocolate pieces anyways! Make a chocolate butter cream, it looks better with the pieces.

NOTE: When I start a cake, I always put shreds of the grease proof paper around it to catch any mess I don't want on my board at the end.

STEP 2

Melt down your 2 chocolates. Once they've melted all the way down, keep them this way by leaving them on the hob at a really low heat.

STEP 3

On top of grease proof paper, using a tablespoon, create dollops of the dark/milk chocolate. The grease proof paper is essential so that you can peel away the shapes once they have set!!!! Top these with swirls of the white chocolate. Don't worry about making perfect circles, you're going to mess them up anyway!

STEP 4

Using a sharp knife, start at the center of your chocolate circles and flick outwards to make a splattered shape. Do this around the full circles of your dollop. Don't be afraid to cut lines across others...again, it doesn't need to be perfect! Make some of your shapes longer so that you have taller pieces for the top of the cake.

Your chocolate shapes should now look something like this. I made 22 in all. I wish I'd had more to bulk the cake up a bit between tiers. As you make your shapes, pop sets in the fridge to help them set (this took longer than I thought).

STEP 5

Fill a mug with boiling water and leave your sharp knife to sit in it for a few minutes. The boiling water will heat the knife up and make it easier to cut cleanly through your shapes. Take the knife and trim the bottom of each shape to a flat. 

NOTE: Keep the pieces you cut off, they'll come in hand for decoration at the end.

STEP 6:

Arrange the shapes around the base of your cake.

STEP 7

Cut supporting slots into the top of the cake for the top tier. This should mirror the shape of the ones surrounding the base of the cake. 

NOTE: Don't even bother trying to avoid this step in favour of just trying to balance the pieces, hoping that the butter cream will do the job. I tried this!!! I didn't work..the pieces kept toppling and it was utterly impossible to move the cake anywhere without trashing it. 

STEP 8

Slot your shapes into the slits that you cut out for them to rest in. Once you have done this, use four longer shapes to make a center stack coming out of the middle (again, make sure you cut the support slits for these!). 

Once finished, use left over shapes and the cut offs to fill gaps.