big chocolate marble

I usually make a cake for my dad's birthday every year, and every year he usually wants carrot cake. But I thought I'd challenge myself this year and try something else from scratch. Enter Sally's Marble Cake. Now I've made a Marble Pound Cake before (Cooking Light recipe) but that wasn't the texture I was going for this time. Also it was--surprisingly--a bit less work.

This was my first time working with cake flour--I've been putting off buying it for years. I don't know why; the box doesn't even take up that much space. And it makes such a soft cake. I had no idea. I followed the sheet cake variation and overbaked mine by about five minutes (and dried out the edges) but the center was still soft. And the chocolate wasn't too rich for me. This is why I've never made a chocolate cake (and work with chocolate chips sparingly); I'm afraid I won't be able to handle it. But I used a whole baking bar of semi-sweet chocolate and my stomach was fine--and it had a great chocolate flavor. My dad ate it in chunks but I still think that I should make it up to him next month with some carrot cake cookies or waffles or something.

Or maybe I just need new guinea pigs.