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This marble cake was created by our friend Shani Monin.

We asked Shani to create a simple stirred cake made only with natural ingredients: fruit, whole spelt flour, olive oil, maple syrup, and cocoa. The result is a vegan marble cake that still feels like the familiar cake many of us grew up with, only gentler and made from better ingredients.

Prefer a dairy version? There is also a dairy marble cake recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 3 medium apples, peeled
  • About 3/4 cup maple syrup (240 g)
  • 6 tablespoons olive oil (80 g)
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, or any other vinegar you have at home
  • About 2 cups whole spelt flour (255 g)
  • 1 3/4 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/3 teaspoon salt, plus a pinch
  • 2 tablespoons cocoa powder (16 g)

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 340 F (170 C).
  2. Grate 2 1/2 apples on the fine holes of a grater. You can eat the remaining half apple while you wait for the cake to bake. For the recipe, you need about 270 g grated apple, including its juice.
  3. Add the wet ingredients to the bowl with the grated apples and their juice: maple syrup, olive oil, and vinegar. Mix.
  4. Add the dry ingredients, except for the cocoa, to the bowl: flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix briefly, just until the flour is incorporated and there are no lumps.
  5. Pour two-thirds of the batter into the baking pan.
  6. Add the cocoa to the remaining third of the batter and mix briefly, just until the cocoa is incorporated.
  7. Pour the dark batter over the light batter in the pan.
  8. Using the handle of a spoon, a skewer, or any other comfortable tool, draw through the batter: first from bottom to top along the length of the pan, then in gentle swirls.
  9. Bake in the preheated oven for about 35 minutes, until a knife or toothpick comes out with moist crumbs.

Variations

  • You can replace the apples with another fruit you like, such as pear, nectarine, or plum.
  • You can replace the maple syrup with other sweeteners, such as silan (date syrup), apple juice concentrate, or honey if the cake does not need to remain vegan.

Good luck!