Bake Along #38 Basic Marble Loaf

I've been wanting to make a zebra cake for sometime now, so this marble loaf comes at a perfect time.  Although Subha suggested that we make any 2 flavours, I am unable to think beyond vanilla and chocolate as a classic pairing and can't find it in me to try other flavour combos before i do vanilla chocolate and do it well.
I'm choosing to follow the marble cake recipe from Divine Taste and use my new home made vanilla extract for the recipe.  I am going to make the photos the highlight of this recipe as it is such a simple one, no decoration involved and I can allow myself to take more time with it.
The recipe at Divine Taste is a large one - I will be making that and dividing the batter between a 7" round and a 8" by 4" loaf pan that i have.
I also wish to make this as a bundt with chocolate fudge frosting but may be that can be done sometime later.  There is really no end to my wish of baking.  I could keep baking each day and not get bored.  That is how i feel about it.

Ingredients:

• 420 gm (3 cups) plain flour
• 65 gm (1/4 cup +2 tbsp) cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 250 ml +30 ml (1 cup + 2 tbsp) hot water, divided
• 490 gm (2 1/4 cups) granulated sugar
• 250 ml (1 cup) oil (preferably rice bran)
• 250 ml cup medium consistency slightly sour yogurt (Indian curd) or sour cream
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

 Method:

Lightly grease the 8" by 4" loaf pan as well as the 7" round pan.

Heat about 1 and a 1/2 cups of water

In a large bowl, assemble the dry ingredients- the flour, baking powder and baking soda and sieve together to make the mixture uniform and prevent lumps in the flour mixture.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

In another bowl put in the hot water and sugar and blend with a mixer until the sugar partly melts. Quickly stir in the oil and the yogurt and mix well.

Stir in the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, add the vanilla extract and mix well using a hand mixer until you get a smooth batter, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Divide the batter into 4 bowls by weight. Put in the cocoa powder (half-half) in two of the bowls and extra water (1 tbsp water + 1/2 tbsp castor sugar in each) into one half. Mix well and beat for a minute until the mixture is smooth.

Now place alternate ladles or spoonfuls of chocolate and vanilla batters in the pan. When all the batter is in the pan, using a knife, make swirling pattern through the batters to get the beautiful marble design. This is quite exciting to do and you might have to stop yourself in order to over do it or else you might have one uniform mixture or batter.

Bake in the middle rack of an oven. After 15 minutes lower the heat to 150C/300F and bake for 45 minutes more or until a skewer comes out clean.  You might need to bake slightly longer (about 10 minutes more or so) for the loaf cake.  As always check before the baking time indicated in the recipe.

Try to take photos like those below, use the point and shoot camera instead of phone camera and see.  Spend some time on the photography as this is a simple bake.
These marble loaf cake photos are taken from Nithya Thirunavukarasu from what was posted in FondBites Bake Along FB group with Subhashini Ramsingh.  Zebra cake is from Treat n trick blog's chocolate banana zebra cake, i think.  The divine taste picture is the individual bundt marble cake slice.