Fudge Marble Cake

Well I had a moderately productive day!
After getting up early and starting my day off well I was amazed to see how much time I had nice I was done my normal duties (feeding Gabe, changing Gabe, feeding Gabe again, playing with Gabe, more feeding...). Anyway, the weather was wretched today so I didn't get to take Gabe swimming, but at around 3:00, after I had done some laundry, cleaned the bathroom and trimmed the dog's nails, I decided to bake something. My first idea was to make some pretzels but I couldn't find my recipe. Then I remembered that I had wanted to make up my own marble cake recipe for a while now. And by for a while I mean years. When I was growing up we always had Archie comics in the house and in one comic Jughead bet the girls that he could bake an amazing marble cake. Well, at the end of the story Archie and Jughead are eating this cake that they describe as "light as a feather". From the very first time I read that story I had an idea in my head of what a marble cake should taste like: creamy and fluffy at the same time... Well I was disappointed to find that marble cakes are usually little more than a plain cake with some chocolate mixed into half the batter. I never bothered making one because I had never found a recipe that measured up. So I gave up looking and today I finally made one! It isn't perfect yet because I used a base cake recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and it wasn't airy enough to match the rest of the recipe, so I won't post the full recipe yet, but I will say what I did! First off, the Marble Cake recipe in the cookbook called for chocolate syrup to mix into half the batter for the chocolate portion. Well I decided that Nestle chocolate syrup was not befitting the high notions I had for my cake, so I had about a cup worth of semi-sweet chocolate chips that sat on the counter and melted down into chunks one day so I melted that down in a double boiler. I made the batter and spread a little more than half into the pan. Then I stirred the rerst into the melted chocolate. Next, I whipped about 3 ounces of cream cheese until it was fairly smooth and dropped it by little chunks all over the bottom layer of batter. I put in half the cream cheese first and then folded it in and then put the rest on top so that it was all spread out. Then I threw the extra chocolatey batter on top and dragged a butter knife through to make sure that it swirled all pretty like. The verdict is that it's the best marble cake I've ever had! One more try and it will be perfect I think.
I got the latest Martha Stewart magazine today too. I think they were making up for all the other ones being so late lately. I love Martha Stewart Living. The tips they give are fantastic and while I definitely do not share their taste or style, I can appreciate what they are doing for sure. My favorite article in this magazine was about Martha's kitchen. I almost had to stop reading it I was getting so jealous. I will be saving that article for ever and eventually building and organizing a kitchen almost identical to hers. That, of course, will be years and years and tens of thousands of dollars down the road. And I probably will never keep a drawer for dog clothes in my kitchen, but everything down to her two islands, her mortar and pestle display and her tea drawer is perfect. I dream of being that organized.
Anyway, it is now time for us to turn on the fire and cuddle up with Gabe on the couch! Ta ta!

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)