There's nothing fancy about it but the icing — if you have a local ethnic store from which you can purchase the "marbled icing", you're fortunate. But it's hardly required.
For the cake:
Preparation time: 1,5 hours
Ingredients:
- 5 eggs
- 250g powdered sugar
- 250g flour
- 150 ml oil
- 150ml hot water
- 2 tablespoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon cocoa
- Butter for the baking form / gugelhupf pan
Instructions:
Separate whites and yolks of the eggs. Preheat the oven to 350F.
Beat the sugar well with the egg yolks until creamy. Then slowly alternately add the oil and the hot water.
When this process is complete, stir the baking powder and flour together very well and start adding them slowly, spoonful by spoonful.
Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl until approximatly four times their original volume (stiff peaks). Fold them carefully into the cake batter.
Divide the batter into two bowls and carefully add the chocolate to one of them (you don't want to beat it so hard that the folded=in egg whites lose their integrity: they'll cotribute significantly to the way this cake rises).
Pour the lighter-colored batter into the cake pan (which you've liberally greased first with the butter). Then pour the batter which has had the chocolate added to it on top. At this point you can if you like carefully draw a knife through the batter, once around the cake, but some cooks prefer not to do this.
Bake for 45 minutes or until a testing straw comes out clean. Allow to cool thoroughly on a rack before turning out.
To finish the cake, shake powdered sugar over it, or a combination of vanilla and chocolate icings. Some people like to add raisins or chopped nuts as well.