Marbled Chocolate Lemon Loaf Cake; swirls of light lemon cake and rich chocolate cake topped with milk chocolate ganache and lemon zest.
Chocolate and lemon is a combination I’ll defend to the end of my days. It’s not nearly as prized as the pairing of chocolate and orange, or even as much as chocolate and lime. But it should be.
White chocolate and lemon isn’t too strange a flavour combination to find in mainstream chocolates or baked treats, but people rarely mix this sour citrus fruit with milk or dark chocolate. Lemon has the benefit of being both strong enough to stand up to the rich cocoa flavour, and being gentle enough to balance it out.
If you like chocolate and lemon together, you HAVE to try this layer cake too!
As lemons come into season, and chocolate never goes out of season, this cake seemed like an essential bake for mid-April.
I actually made a whole YouTube video to show you guys how to make it!
Something about loaf cakes also seem to fit the season. Spring, in Scotland at least, is a dance between freezing cold and just-mild weather. We had heavy snow when I baked this cake on Saturday, as I write this on Tuesday we are in our second day of beautiful blue sky. Loaf cakes bridge this strange gap between sunny days and snowy days. They feel light and satisfying at the same time; an afternoon tea treat that could also serve as dessert.
They seem to be growing in popularity these days, with a few other food blogs posting some lovely looking loaves. Perhaps the appeal, aside from the eating, is in their simplicity. You don’t need to faff about with multiple cake tins, layering up layer after layer of cake with frosting and the like. Just fill the tin and let the oven do the hard work. If you wanted to make things really simple, you wouldn’t even have to add the milk chocolate ganache to this Marbled Chocolate Lemon Loaf Cake. The first test cake I made was left naked, and was absolutely delicious (but let’s be honest, a ganache has never made anything uglier or nastier).
Cut a wee slice. Pick it up with your hands, a few moist crumbs tumbling to the plate. Sink your teeth through that soft, creamy ganache into the tender lemon cake and rich chocolate cake. Nothing short of dreamy.
The marble element of this cake is simply made by splitting your cake batter into two bowls and adding their respective flavouring. You then blob them randomly throughout your tin and use either a chopstick, cocktail stick, or the tip of a knife, to swirl them through each other. Feels easy, looks fancy. The best kind of baking.
As ever, I used Cocoa Runners chocolate in this recipe. I used their fantastic cocoa powder, which makes cakes so much richer without any of the flatness or bitterness found in normal cocoa powder. You can find it here. I also used their gorgeously creamy 44% milk chocolate in the ganache topping. You can find it here. Don’t forget to use code MaverickBaking10 for 10% off!
For the other ingredients, I’d just recommend using whichever brands you like. When it comes to the salt, using the big flaky kind is best for flavour in sprinkling it over the cake, but that’s totally up to you.
We’ve chomped our way through two of these loaves in the past three days. It’s one of those bakes that just seems to be appropriate at any time of day. Breakfast, post-breakfast, afternoon snack, dessert, bedtime snack. I hope you guys will love it just as much.
Want to save this Marbled Chocolate Lemon Loaf Cake for later? You can pin the image below!
If you want to make this Marbled Chocolate Lemon Loaf Cake, simply follow the recipe below:
Ingredients
For the loaf cake:
- 80g (5 tbsp) soft butter
- 80ml (⅓ cup) olive or rapeseed oil
- 160g (¾ cup) caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 1 large egg yolk
- 140g (1 ¼ cups) self-raising flour (plus 2 tbsp for lemon batter)
- Pinch of salt
- Zest of 1 lemon (for lemon batter)
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder (I use Cocoa Runners’) (for chocolate batter)
- Handful of chocolate chips (for chocolate batter)
For the ganache and topping:
- 150ml (⅔ cup) double or whipping cream
- 120g (4 oz) milk chocolate (I use Cocoa Runners’)
- 1 tbsp honey
- Pinch of salt
- Zest of half a lemon
Instructions
For the loaf cake:
- Preheat your oven – 180 C / 160 C fan / 350 F / gas mark 4.
- Grease and line a regular 1lb (450g) loaf tin with a little oil and greaseproof paper.
- In a large bowl, beat together the butter, oil, sugar and vanilla until fluffy. This should take 2-3 minutes.
- Add the eggs and egg yolk one at a time, beating well between each.
- Gently stir in the flour and salt until just combined into a smooth cake batter.
- Divide the cake batter between two different bowls.
- Add the 2tbsp of flour and the lemon zest to one bowl and mix into a lemon cake batter.
- Add the 2 tbsp cocoa powder and the chocolate chips to the second bowl and mix into a chocolate cake batter.
- Blob both cake mixes into your prepared tin and use the tip of a knife or a chopstick to swirl them through each other.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 40-50 minutes or until risen and firm to the touch. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should be removed cleanly once it is baked.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin (don’t worry if it sinks a little bit – the ganache can hide all your secrets). Meanwhile, prepare your ganache.
For the ganache and topping:
- In a medium bowl, weigh out your chocolate and honey.
- In a small saucepan over a medium heat, warm your cream until gently steaming and hot to the touch.
- Once hot, pour the cream over the chocolate and honey and leave to stand for 1 minute.
- Stir the melting mixture until you have a smooth ganache.
- Allow it to cool and thicken until it is spreadable, and not too runny.
- Once thickened, spread the ganache onto the loaf cake.
- Grate over some lemon zest and add a sprinkle of salt (the flaky kind is best).
- Enjoy!
BE A MAVERICK: why not try swapping out the lemon zest for orange zest or lime zest instead?
This Marbled Chocolate Lemon Loaf Cake will keep well for up to 3 days in an airtight container, but is best eaten fresh!
