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1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
In a large bowl, lightly cream or rub together the sugar, butter, and 1/2 cup of the flour. Beat in the eggs and egg yolks one at a time. Mix in the remaining 1-1/4 cups flour, baking powder, and salt. Slowly add the milk and vanilla, then beat thoroughly.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites into soft peaks. Slowly add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and cream of tartar (if desired). Beat until stiff peaks form and the egg whites are shiny. Gently fold the whites into the cake mixture.
Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a double boiler, in a microwave oven, or over a flame tamer. Let cool, then drizzle the melted chocolate in spirals over the top of the finished batter in the mixing bowl. With a spatula, quickly swirl the chocolate down through the batter to marbleize. Do not over-mix. See note.
Grease two 8 or 9" loaf pans, then line them with parchment or waxed paper and grease and flour-dust the bottom. Carefully scoop the batter into the prepared pans, filling them two-thirds full. In the bakery, we drizzled extra melted chocolate over the tops and ran some thin lines with a knife length-wise through the batter, creating a marbleized design.
Bake in a preheated 350°F oven until browned and the center feels firm when gently pressed with a fingertip, 45 to 60 minutes. Don't burn your finger on any hot melted chocolate that may be on top. (If you forget, welcome to the club.) Let cool for 5 to 10 minutes in the pans, then remove and let cool completely on wire racks.
You want to keep some chocolate from blending fully into the batter. When the cake is being eaten, folks are supposed to wonder how it was baked with strands of rich unmelted chocolate on the inside.
Poster's Notes:
Except from article from web site:
Posted by Nancy Berry
Nutritional Info Per Serving: N/A
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (1 stick plus 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter or margarine softened
1-3/4 cups cake flour
2 eggs plus 2 egg yolks
1-1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk or water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup egg whites
1/4 cup sugar
1 pinch cream of tartar (optional)
6 ounces semisweet chocolate bits (about 1 cup)
Shortening for greasing pans
Flour for dusting pans
This tried and true recipe and the article associated with it is from Arthur Schwartz's website, http://www.foodmaven.com. This cake was always one of my favorites when I was a child growing up in the Borscht Belt in upstate New York and is a very good dessert to serve at a break-fast meal.
George sent me this note when he heard the question on food talk:
"The marble cake that your listener was referring to is called 'Wonder
Cake.' It was baked in every Jewish bakery in New York in the olden days (1950s and '60s, and then some). It was called
'Wonder Cake' for two reasons. The first being that a standard loaf cake was made light and fluffy to some extent by the addition of whipped egg whites folded into the batter. The second, and to me the real reason for the name, is in the method used to
marbleize the loaf. A coating chocolate, not a very fine one, is melted, allowed to cool but not to harden, and is drizzled or swirled over the top of the batter in the mixing bowl, then quickly and lightly swirled down into the batter with the hand or a wooden spoon. Some of the chocolate will blend into the batter and some will remain unabsorbed. It requires a certain amount of delicate handling and generally needs several attempts to become proficient. When the proper result is obtained, part of the cake will be marbleized with chocolate batter with different degrees of chocolate intensity and some chocolate will not be absorbed at all. When biting into the cake, parts of the cake will have a vein of chocolate cake, and other parts will be more or less hard chocolate threads. When it is eaten one WONDERS how the feat was accomplished. The recipe is in my book.'"