Marbled Chocolate Crunch Cake

It's Friday night and somehow Mr B has ended up working night shift which will see him home around 5am tomorrow morning. He was very apologetic about leaving me home on my own on a Friday night and I did my best to look a little bit disappointed.

In reality I might have been planning how I would spend my night before he had even finished his sentence.

Currently I'm perched on the couch, in my pyjamas, with the music so loud I'm sure the neighbours can hear it, singing my heart out, eating leftovers and surrounded by my recipe folders and magazines....did I mention there's a batch of Raspberry, Coconut and Nutella Brownies cooling on the kitchen bench?

And the excitement doesn't stop there - later on I plan on painting my nails and crawling into the middle of a warm bed (possibly with one of the aforementioned brownies....) where I will read a book until I fall asleep......

My idea of the perfect solo evening....

Whilst the bed warms up and I contemplate what colour to paint my toenails, I NEED to tell you about this amazing cake my Mum and Dad made this week......

This cake was incredible and would make a delightful treat to have with your afternoon cup of tea or a decadent dessert with a generous dollop of cream.  I would definitely recommend serving it warm so that the dark chocolate chunks are beautiful and melty.

Marbled Chocolate Crunch Cake - Serves 12

2.25 cups plain flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/3 cup brown sugar
275g butter
2 tbspns water
3/4 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
2 tspns vanilla extract
2 tspns baking powder
100g dark chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line a 20cm square cake tin.

Make the chocolate crumble by sifting 3/4 cup of the flour and 1/2 cup cocoa into a large bowl. Stir in the brown sugar and 100g of butter. Use your fingers to rub the butter in until you have a crumbly mixture. Add the water and mix gently. Set aside.

Place the remaining butter and caster sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until pale and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until combined. Stir through vanilla. Sift remaining flour and baking powder over the top of the mixture and gently mix until smooth.

Dollop 3/4 of the batter into your prepared tin. Sift the remaining cocoa into the remaining batter and stir to combine, then fold in the chopped dark chocolate. Dollop the chocolate batter amongst the vanilla batter and smooth the surface. Top with the chocolate crumble mixture and bake for 40 mins. Cool in tin for 10 mins and serve warm with whipped cream.

Enjoy!

Mrs B xx