Marbled poundcake (one batter, two flavors)

My goal was to come up with a marbled poundake recipe that does not require you to make two totally separate batters. Both of these flavors are from one base batter. I tried many different ways of chocolatifying the base, and this was the best one. Start off by measuring out 3 tablespoons of neutral oil. Neutral in this context means anything that doesn't have a super strong flavor, like olive oil, might taste weird. This is a legitimate time to use the highly refined seed oils. And in this will go to the microwave. First, take out the test bakes that you've been hiding from the dog in there. And then heat up this oil for maybe 30 seconds. It's hard to say because it won't boil or anything. Just get it hot. Doesn't have to be scary hot. And into that, we will stir 3 tablespoon of cocoa powder. I like the Dutch processed kind. And you could definitely do like four tablespoons if you want, but much more than that will make the chocolate cake kind of dry on the palette. Stir this up smooth. Then we will simply let the cocoa bloom in there while we proceed. Blooming in hot water or fat really does make the cocoa taste a little bit more intense. And that's important here where I'm trying to use as little as possible for texture reasons. And now I'm going to grab my scale and then a bowl. Hi there. Choose a bowl that's on the small side. This way the beers will go down deeper into the ingredients and that'll make it easier to really whip things up. I'm going to weigh this bowl and note the amount so that I can subtract it later. Now we need three sticks, 340 g of butter. Ideally left to soften on the counter for a few hours, but if you forgot, like I always do, come back over to the microwave. I used to turn the power way down for this, but honestly, I found that makes very little difference if you nuke the butter for just a few seconds at a time. Go in and rotate them because the bottom never heats at the same rate as everything else. And then repeat like 5 seconds at a time. Stop as soon as you can smush the butter like that. that's on the verge of melting, which would be bad. It's okay if parts of the butter still feel a little too cold and firm. Odds are other parts are a little too warm, and we are about to homogenize everything, so it's all going to even out. 2 cups, 400 g of granulated sugar go in with the butter, and then we will hit it with the beers. Poundake is supposed to be very dense and heavy and high fat, but it will be a straight brick if you cheat this step. This is the step where we use the sugar as an abrasive to cut little microbubbles into the butter. Those will expand slightly in the oven. This takes several minutes to do. You're trying to get this to look whipped, where the color goes slightly pale because you've worked air in there. When in doubt, keep whipping. This step will get us a cake that is as silky and smooth as my new boxer briefs from Skiims, sponsor of this video. Yes, I'm baking in my underwear today. You should, too. It's liberating. And yes, Skiims does make stuff for dudes, too. As is common among people with my particular kind of neurode divergence or whatever, my sense of touch tends to drive me a little bonkers. Most underwear is honestly a constant source of low-level torment to me, like I'm a penitent monk wearing a hair shirt. Ski, in contrast, are not self-mortifying. I find them calming. This stretch material is so smooth and thin and cool to the touch. These are the stretch 3-in boxer briefs. I buy them like a size up. These are the extra large, and I honestly forget that I have them on, which is a revelation. Plus, they enhance the absolute dump truck I'm working on in the gym. Click my link in the description to shop the men's collection at this important now. Tell them that I sent you. After you've paid, select YouTube in the survey and then type in my name, Adam Reagusia. It'll come up in the drop- down menu. If you do that, you'll be doing me a solid. Thank you. And thank you, Skiims. Now, this butter is looking whipped. It's time for 1 cup, 237 mls, of buttermilk. Cultured buttermilk, similar to kafir in India. I know not everybody has this stuff, and I've tried using other things, but really nothing beats buttermilk in this. It keeps the poundake dense, but not too dense. You could substitute by watering down sour cream or creme fresh or whatever until you get a similar texture. And if you put it in cold from the fridge, it'll actually stiffen the butter a little bit as you mix it in. That will allow the butter to hold even more bubbles. I'm taking my time to whip this again. It's noticeably fluffier. Now, time for four eggs. I've actually found that it's worth it to mix these into the batter one or two at a time. If you put them all in at once, you get a kind of curdled texture, like little bits of batter that are sliding around inside liquid egg, and then the beers have trouble grabbing a hold of them. If that happens, you can still smooth out the batter, but it takes way more mixing, and too much mixing going forward might actually deflate our foam and make the cake kind of tough. That's a little of the curdling I'm talking about there. Mix that up as smooth as it'll go. And then it's time for everything else. I'll do a little gug of vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda, not baking powder. This is not really for leavenning. It's just to neutralize the buttermilk and raise the pH a bit. That helps the cake solidify at a slightly lower internal temperature, keeping it moist, which is important for such a thick cake. It's going to take a long time in the oven. And I did the tiniest pinch of salt because I used salted butter. Now I'm working in my all-purpose flour, one cup at a time, so that it doesn't explode all over me. We want 3 cups total, 420 g. Don't over mix that. Just get it smooth. Get a standard 9x5 in loaf pan, 23x3 cm, and lube it up. Then put in a big pinch of flour and try to get that dusting over every surface. You could line the inside with parchment paper instead to prevent sticking, but I think this actually enhances the crust a little bit. Now get the scale and weigh the batter bowl. Subtract the weight of the bowl itself that we noted before and then divide the result by two. Half of this batter weighs 800 g. So I will put 800 g into the pan trying to keep it all on one side. I could divide this in half by eye, but if I took away too much batter at this stage, then the cocoa mixture might make the chocolate batter a little too thin and it it wouldn't bake right. 800 g are in. Now, we can work in this bloomed cocoa and oil mixture. If you did just straight cocoa powder, it would bake up a little dry. It needs the oil. This gets you a texture that's very similar to using melted solid chocolate. And based on my tests, this is easier and tastes better. You can do a teaspoon or two of instant espresso powder if you're into that. Kind of functions as a chocolate enhancer. And now we can just beat that up smooth. Scrape down the sides and fold until you get a homogeneous color. And it's okay if it looks wetter than the other batter. The chocolate kind of requires it. Drop the rest of this into the other half of the loaf pan. And then you can bake that as is, or you can take a knife or something and swirl it a bit. You could swirl it a lot more, but eventually you're going to start fully mixing the two flavors together, which would defeat the point. In this goes to an oven at 350 Fahrenheit, 180 C. And if you have a convection fan, I found that it's worth adjusting the temperature down for this per your manufacturer's instructions. I'm doing 325 Fahrenheit, 160C, with my fan on, which effectively makes the oven hotter. It enhances heat transfer. A loaf this thick and dense is going to take nearly an hour and a half to bake. And if your oven is too hot, it'll burn on the outside before it's done. When you think you're close, do the toothpick test right at the top there. The area right under the apex is usually the last part to bake. If the toothpick comes out clean, you're done. Let this cool and solidify before you try to get it out. This is like a half hour later. You can go around the sides with a knife if you're scared. And then just give it a thump. It's heavy and solid enough that you can be a little rough with it. Use a bread knife or something with serrations and you'll get cleaner slices. Though, be careful going through that top crust, especially when fresh. It'll be really crunchy and therefore liable to tear or crumble on you. Super moist. The chocolate side no less than the yellow side. Yay. I'm really happy with this and I like it even more the next day.