Marble Pound Cake

We've never had a go-to Marble Pound Cake recipe until now- this is the one.

This pound cake has it all- an incredibly soft texture, delicious buttery flavor with just the right amount of chocolate, and it is SO easy to make!

How to Make Marble Pound Cake

This ultra moist marble pound cake is based in part on our whipping cream pound cake recipe. I actually used heavy cream in today's recipe but the two can be used interchangeably.

The cream adds richness to the cake and enhances the texture, making it even more moist. This is one of those melt-in-your-mouth kind of cakes- you are going to love it!

*You can find our full, printable pound cake recipe further down in this post, but here is a quick rundown of our steps:

1. Prepare the Pan: Grease and flour a bundt or tube pan. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

2. Flour Mixture: In a separate bowl whisk the cake flour, salt, and baking powder for 30 seconds combine. Set aside for later.

3. Butter & Sugar: Cream the butter with the paddle attachment in your mixer until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and mix until lightened in color and fluffy -about 3 to 5 minutes.
4. Add Eggs: Add the room temperature eggs one at a time blending after each.
5. Vanilla: Add Vanilla Extract to the Cup of Heavy Cream.
6. Adding Dry and Wet Ingredients: With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the heavy cream. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. (We do three additions of the flour mixture alternately with two additions of the heavy cream). After the last addition of the flour mixture, mix just until batter is well incorporated and smooth.

Preparing the Chocolate Batter

Now it's time to turn a portion of our vanilla pound cake batter into chocolate which we will be using for our marbled effect.

• Remove two cups of cake batter and put in a bowl. (This is about ¼ of your cake batter).
• In a separate bowl, dissolve 3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder with 3 tablespoons of very hot water. Stir until the cocoa dissolved, allow to sit for 3 minutes.

Dissolving the cocoa in hot water and waiting a few minutes before using is important as it allows the cocoa to bloom, releasing more intense chocolate flavor. It also replaces the moisture that can be lost when adding cocoa to cake batter.

Marbling the Cake Batter

Now it's time for the fun part- adding layers of chocolate and vanilla pound cake batter so that we can marble it!

There is more than one way to marble a cake, and the process is very forgiving- just be careful not to over-mix the two colors.

First, we spread about three cups of the vanilla cake batter in the bottom of the prepared bundt cake pan.

Next, we added the chocolate cake batter on top of that and lightly spread (it doesn't have to look perfect).

Then, we added the remaining vanilla batter to the pan.

We lightly marbled the chocolate and vanilla pound cake batter with a knife by holding it vertically and moving it through the batter a few times.

Be careful not to over-marble the batter or you will have a light brown cake instead of swirls ;0)

Time to Bake! Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour- 1 hour, 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.

Baking times can vary and so peek in as the timer approaches the 1 hour mark. If the top of the cake begins to get too dark, cover loosely with a piece of aluminum foil.

Allow the pound cake to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning out onto serving plate or pedestal.

Decorating the Pound Cake

This Marble Pound cake is so delicious, you don't need the chocolate glaze, but we love the bit of drama that it adds. Plus, a boost of rich chocolate flavor is always a good thing!

Whether you decide to top your chocolate marbled pound cake slices with ice cream, whipped cream, a simple chocolate drip, or nothing at all- you really can't go wrong!

Easy Chocolate Glaze

Our simple chocolate glaze is a quick ganache that can be prepared in the microwave.

I combined 4 oz. of semi-sweet chocolate with 3 oz. heavy cream in a microwavable bowl and melted it in small increments (30 seconds or less) in the microwave until the chocolate was almost entirely melted.

Stir gently to melt the few remaining bits of chocolate and then cool until it reaches a good consistency for dripping.

For the most control, I prefer to pipe the ganache drip onto the cake through a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away. (You can do the same thing with a ziplock bag with a corner snipped away).

The warmer the ganache, the faster it will flow down the side of the cake. I like to cool my ganache so that it easily flows from the bag but stops before reaching the bottom.

Ganache consistency all comes down to personal preference- you can even spoon the ganache over the cake if you'd like!

Can Marble Pound Cake be Frozen?

Yes it can! You can bake this pound cake and freeze it up to three months in advance and once thawed, it will taste as fresh as the day that it was made.

We freeze our cakes all the time- it makes life easier when you can bake well in advance, and we find that freezing cakes while they are still a bit warm adds even more moisture!

When baking in advance, we allow our freshly baked pound cake to cool in the cake pan for about 10 minutes before flipping it out onto a foil-wrapped cake board.

Allow the cake to cool a few minutes more before wrapping with plastic wrap and then aluminum foil. The cake is a bit warm when we wrap it. Then, into the freezer it goes!

We thaw our cakes at room temperature on the kitchen counter, still wrapped. Once a good amount of condensation has formed on the wrapping, (after 30-45 minutes), we go ahead and unwrap and allow the cake to continue to warm to room temperature.

You can speed the process along by moving the wrapped cake from the freezer to the refrigerator the night before, and then move to the kitchen counter the next morning.

More Pound Cakes to Try

In addition to today's chocolate marble cake, We have more pound cake recipes for you to try! We love the taste and convenience of pound cakes, and there are so many amazing flavor options.

Here are just a few favorite pound cakes for your must-bake list!:

Strawberry Pound Cake

Lemon Blueberry Sour Cream Pound Cake

7 Up Pound Cake

Enjoy the Recipe

Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope that you enjoy this moist Marble Pound Cake recipe as much as we have.

If you give the recipe a try, please leave a comment and photo below- we would love to hear from you!