White Chocolate & Coffee Marbled Loaf Cake

Reached out for my favorite baking book out of the lot I looted from Amazon.com. I love how Dorie Greenspan writes her books. Her instructions are always so detailed and clear, providing extra information on how the mix will turn out to be, so we can keep check of whether we're on the right track. I've come across recipes where they always call for that one particular queer ingredient, either too rare or way out of the budget, and you have to skip the whole page as you don't wanna buy a whole bag of it just to make that one recipe. But nope, not in Dorie Greenspan's recipes, her ingredients are easily available everywhere. Already bookmarked numerous pages in her book, so you'll be seeing more of her recipes coming up in my future bakes heehee

So for the September monthly zadankai, I took on the challenge of making my first marbled cake...and I think I'm addicted to marbling! So funnn!!! hahahah I like how the marbling is so unpredictable and volatile. And how the flavorings is entirely up to your imagination, so as long as the color contrast is there.

While I like the flavors very much, I thought the cake could be less dense than this. I figured that I must have probably overmixed the batter a little, resulting in a less soft texture. Nevertheless it would not stop me from the next marbled cake attempt. Thinking of all the possible combination makes me excited heehee

White Chocolate & Coffee Marbled Loaf Cake (adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours)

Ingredients:
280g plus 2 tbsp all purpose flour (I measured mine to be 293g)
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
169g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g granulated sugar
4 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
120ml whole milk

Flavorings:
85g white chocolate, melted
1 1/4 tsp instant coffee powder dissolved in 1 tbsp of water

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 160°C (150°C if you're using a dark pan like me) and grease a 8.5" x 4.5" loaf pan, dust the inside with flour and tap out the excess
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt
3. In a separate bowl, beat butter until smooth on medium speed
4. Add sugar and beat for another 2 to 3 mins
5. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Don't be concerned if the batter curdles and stays curdled
6. Beat in vanilla extract
7. Reduce mixer speed to low and alternately add flour mixture in 3 additions and milk in 2, mixing only until each addition is incorporated
8. Divide batter into half
9. Stir white chocolate into one portion and coffee into the other portion
10. Spoon white chocolate and coffee batter out in alternating rows and plunge a table knife into batter and zigzag through the batter in about 6-8 zigs and zags (I did only 4)
11. Bake for 1h 20 to 30 mins. If the cake looks as if it's getting too brown, cover it loosely with a foil tent
12. Transfer cake to cooling rack and let it rest for abt 15mins before unmolding, then cool the cake to room temperature right side up on the rack