The Vegan Nigerian: MANGO & CHOCOLATE MARBLE CAKE

Cooking is like my other great love: writing. You conceive of this vague idea and you let the characters reveal themselves to you over time; you trace out the possible narrative in daydreaming sessions throughout your day; you stew over the conflicts and resolutions of your killer plot; you adhere to the distinguished literary tradition that came before you, all the while trying to carve out your own path with innovation and originality. Replace all the literary jargon with some cooking terms and you get the picture...

All this to say that I baked a mango and chocolate marble cake today - the marriage of two headstrong ingredients that had no real business being together and would never have found bliss had my imagination not brought them into the same cake tin.

The bitter-sweet ending to this tale is that the cake is pure goodness. Two of my favourite ingredients kicking it, loving life, but trying to escape my antagonistic appetite.

Ingredients

- 2 cups wholegrain flour

- 1 cup brown sugar

- 2 tsp baking powder

- 1 tsp ground ginger

- 1 cup almond milk

- 1/2 cup sunflower oil

- 3 tbsp cocoa powder

- 1/2 cup mango purée (cut a very ripe, medium-sized mango into small pieces and mash or blend to form a purée)

You'll need two mixing bowls for this recipe, but start off with one and put the other aside for now.

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl (flour, sugar, baking powder, ground ginger). Add the almond milk, and sunflower oil to form a nice, thick cake batter. This is the base mixture.

Here's where the second bowl comes in. Pour about a third of the cake batter into the second bowl and put aside. In the first bowl, add the mango purée and mix well to combine.

In the second bowl, add the cocoa powder and mix well to combine.

Take a regular-sized cake tin and lightly grease it with some oil/vegan butter or line with grease-proof paper. Pour the mango batter in first. Then swirl the chocolate batter into it. Use your finger to create a pattern if you want, don't be afraid to get your hands a bit messy here.