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Ruby Tandoh's Chai swirl loaf cake

This is just a simple marble cake, but with a chai spice mixture in place of

the usual cocoa powder. You can bake it in a 20cm round tin, too, cooking for a

slightly shorter time if so.

Serves 6-8

150g unsalted butter, softened

150g caster sugar

3 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

150g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

tsp salt

6 cardamom pods, seeds only, ground

1 tsp fennel seeds, ground

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

tsp black pepper

25g soft light brown sugar

For the topping

50g unsalted butter, very soft

150g cream cheese

50g icing sugar

Ground cinnamon, to dust

1 Set the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Grease and line a 2lb/900g loaf tin.

2 Cream together the butter and sugar until light and smooth, then beat in the

eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract. Don t worry if the batter

curdles a little. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together in a separate

bowl then fold these dry ingredients into the wet mixture to form a thick

batter.

3 Put 250g of the cake mix in a separate bowl. Combine the spices and sugar,

then add this to the bowl of batter, combining gently, but thoroughly.

4 Scoop the light and dark cake mixes into the tin, dolloping spoonfuls of each

haphazardly to create a patterned batter. Swirl a small knife lightly through

the mix a couple of times to marble the two colours.

5 Bake for 50-55 minutes or until the cake has risen, set and lightly browned.

A skewer inserted into the middle of the cake should come out with just a crumb

or two stuck to it. Leave to cool in its tin for half an hour or so before

unmoulding on to a wire rack.

6 Once the cake has cooled completely, prepare the topping. Beat the butter

until very smooth, then stir in the cream cheese a little at a time. Sift in

the icing sugar and mix well until combined. Spoon this on to the cooled cake

and slather thickly all over the top, nudging it into soft swirls and ripples

as you go. Dust a little extra cinnamon on top to finish.