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.