All kinds of cakes

strawberry and white chocolate cheesecake

I was planning on making a cheesecake to take to work, to celebrate the upcoming Christmas holiday, but because some of my work colleagues wished for other types of cakes, I decided to conduct a poll in my Finnish blog. The candidates on that poll were strawberry and white chocolate cheesecake, pear-flavoured layer cake, and a marble cake (a.k.a. "tiger cake").

pear-flavoured layer cake

Even after a dishonest poll the cheesecake was in the lead, but since I received an unexpected Christmas present of baking ingredients and my favourite chocolates from the colleague who suggested the pear-flavoured layer cake, I decided to make that one as well. And since it's Christmas, I also made the marble cake (or actually two) left in the last place in the poll.

I must be a little crazy, but all of these four cakes I made in one evening :)

The marble cake (or "tiger cake" as it's known in Finland) recipe is an age-old treasure, but this was the first time I'd ever made two of these cakes at the same time.



Tiger cake:

tiger cakes

250 g          baking margarine
2,5 dl           sugar
1 tl               vanilla sugar
4                  eggs
250 g          plain flour
1,5 tl            baking powder
0,5 dl           orange juice or milk
2 rkl             dark cocoa powder
0,5 dl           coffee, orange juice or milk



Beat together the sugar, vanilla sugar and softened margarine until fluffy. Add one egg at a time.
Mix the flour and the baking powder together in a separate bowl and add to the batter. Add 0,5dl of orange juice or milk and incorporate to the batter.
Take a few spoonfuls of the batter into another bowl and add the cocoa powder and rest of the liquid.

Pour half of the lighter batter into a greased and bread-crumbed bundt pan, add the dark batter and on top of it rest of the lighter batter. Mix the dark batter into the light one by twisting a fork in an up-right position around the pan whilst also moving the fork up and down in the mix.
Make a groove in the middle of the batter (in a circle around the pan) so that the cake will rise more evenly.

Bake in 175°C for 50-60 minutes. Allow to cool down slightly before turning the cake upright.