- Serves 12 - Ready in 4 hours (including 2 hours of cooling time) -
*uses up 1/4 a medium marrow*
Gather together for the cake...
1/4 a medium marrow (500g) - weighed with the skin, ends and seeds removed. Peeled (skin discarded), halved (seeds scooped out and discarded) and coarsely grated.
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 orange.
250ml sunflower oil / rapeseed oil.
3 medium eggs.
300g self-raising flour.
3 tsp mixed spice.
½ tsp baking powder.
100g of dark / milk chocolate (broken into small pieces) - or use smarties if you want to make this cake more appealing to children - or use roughly chopped pecans for a healthier version. 'Cooking chocolate' melts far more easily than regular chocolate and is much less likely to shock and split. Sainsbury's own-brand cooking chocolate is sold in foil and card (so is plastic-free), Green & Black's cooking chocolate is plastic-free AND palm oil-free, but is too pricey for me to use regularly.
250g brown sugar.
Gather together for the topping...
EITHER (if your mascarpone has a 'high' 43%+ fat content)...
6 tbsp (50g) icing sugar, SIEVED.
500g tub full-fat mascarpone, it must have a fat content of at least 43% (Morrisons and Tesco mascarpone works well) or else it will split and go liquid-y when it is mixed with the icing sugar.
OR (if your mascarpone has a 'lower' i.e. under 43% fat content)...
250g mascarpone cheese.
300ml double cream (MUST be double cream as it needs to whip up, DO NOT use Elmlea).
2 tsp vanilla extract.
6 tbsp (50g) icing sugar.
Plus...
2 tbsp maple syrup (to swirl through icing).
1 tbsp maple syrup (to drizzle over).
Get baking...
1. Prep the peeled, de-seeded and coarsely grated 500g of marrow flesh first, so the moisture has time to drain out.
2. Put the grated marrow into a clean tea towel and squeeze the moisture out very thoroughly over the sink, this squeezing will take about 60 seconds, but the longer you squeeze for, the better. Empty the excess moisture out of the large bowl - you can use it to water plants! Then leave the marrow (still in the tea towel) sitting in a large sieve / colander over a bowl (to continue to drain) and set aside.
3. Pre-heat the oven to 160 C (140 C fan) or Gas 3.
4. Grease a 22cm / 23cm round, loose-bottomed tin with oil and line the base of the tin with oiled baking parchment.
5. Give the grated / blitzed marrow one last good squeeze (to remove even more juice), put the squeezed-out marrow into a large bowl and add the zest and juice from 1 orange, plus the 250ml of oil and the 3 medium eggs. Stir well.
6. In a different, large bowl, sieve the 300g of SR flour, sieve in the 3 tsp of mixed spice and sieve in the 1/2 tsp of baking powder. The sieving is needed to add air and to avoid unpleasant lumps. Stir gently but well.
7. Add the 100g of chocolate pieces and stir (they will be covered in flour and this will help to stop them all sinking to the base of the cake).
8. Into the bowl of dry ingredients, sieve in 250g of brown sugar. Stir.
9. Tip the dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ingredients. Fold together, thoroughly but gently, so you don't squash the air out of the flour.
10. Pour the mixture into the lined cake tin and bake for 1 hr 25 mins - until a skewer comes out clean. The cake will brown slightly at the edges but it won't brown much on top.
11. Leave the cake to cool for 30 mins in the tin before removing the tin and placing the cake on a wire rack to cool completely (this cooling will take about 2 hours).
12. Meanwhile, check the fat content of your mascarpone...
12(a). If your mascarpone has a 'high' 43%+ fat content: Into a medium bowl, SIEVE the 6 tbsp of icing sugar (otherwise your filling will have unsightly clumps). Add the 500g mascarpone and stir VERY gently for up to 30 seconds. This simple two-ingredient filling ONLY works if your mascarpone has a very high fat content to stabilise the mixture, a lower than 43% fat content will mean the filling quickly becomes runny and leaks out of the cake.
12(b). If your mascarpone has a lower than 43% fat content, add double cream to stabilise it: In a medium bowl, place the 250g mascarpone, the 300ml of double cream and the 2 tsp of vanilla extract and mix with a handheld whisk for about 30 seconds. Sieve in the 6 tbsp of icing sugar and stir until fully mixed, this will take about 1 minute. It will be very runny at this stage - fear not. Then use an electric whisk for 2 - 5 minutes, until firm peaks form.
13. Now gently stir the 2 tbsp of maple syrup into the mascarpone-mixture, until only just combined.
14. Put the maple-mascarpone-mixture topping in the fridge, in a covered bowl, until the cake is cool.
15. When the cake has FULLY cooled, spread the maple-mascarpone-mixture onto the cake with a spatula, then carefully drizzle over the extra 1 tbsp of maple syrup (put the cake on a plate when you do this, as some syrup will drip off the side if you drizzle too close to the edge). Enjoy!
16. Keep any leftovers covered in the fridge and consume the cake within 2 days.
Adapted from this Good Food recipe.