Today I’m sharing a fabulously moist and delicious Marble Cake recipe from scratch that belongs in your recipe box! Everybody needs a go-to marble cake recipe, don’t they? (YES they do!)
Why choose between a delicious chocolate and a delicious yellow cake when a marble cake can give you the best of both worlds? This is a dessert that never disappoints. Mmmmmm…..
It is the perfect balance of yellow cake with swirls of chocolate, makes beautiful cake layers as well as cupcakes, and it is sturdy enough to hold up well to fondant too.
I LOVE to fill and frost marble cakes with our rich Chocolate Buttercream! (You can find it linked at the bottom of this post!)
Years ago, when making marble cake, I used to prepare a chocolate cake recipe and a yellow cake recipe separately and then combined them. That’s just too much work and too much batter.
With this Marble Cake technique, simply choose your favorite yellow or white cake recipe, and reserve a little to combine with cocoa powder for your swirls.
I just LOVE the combination of yellow cake with chocolate and so this recipe is based on our favorite scratch Yellow Cake.
However, no matter what recipe you are using (whether yellow or white cake), you can follow the same technique!
When you take a closer look at our Marble Cake Recipe, you’ll notice that it calls for the Reverse Creaming Method of Mixing.
With this mixing method, ingredients are added in a different order than you would expect if you are used to the conventional method of mixing. We find that it results in a super moist, delicious, and slightly denser cake.
If you’d like to learn more about this method, or to see our free video, click here: Reverse Creaming Method of Mixing. Also, our cake is frosted with our most favorite Classic Chocolate Buttercream Recipe which you can find below!
To create the marbled effect, scoop spoonfuls of batter into the pans, alternating between the yellow and chocolate batter.
Next, the fun part! Let’s bring some marble to this marble cake by dragging a knife through the batter.
It’s up to you how marbled you make it, although you have to stop yourself from having too much fun or you’ll loose your beautiful contrasting colors of batter!
That’s all there is to it! Bake, fill, frost, and enjoy! We hope that you love this recipe as much as we have. It’s always a crowd pleaser!
Marbled Cake {Scratch Recipe}
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup (242 g) milk
- 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract (If making a coconut cake, add an additional 1 teaspoon coconut extract)
- 2 Tablespoons (18 g) vegetable oil
- 2 1/2 cups (285 g) cake flour
- 1 1/2 cups (300 g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon (6 g) salt
- 2 1/2 teaspoons (12 g) baking powder
- 1 1/2 sticks (12 T) (169 g) unsalted butter, I cut the butter into 1/2 inch slices onto waxed paper for 5 to 6 minutes it will soften only slightly , it should still be quite cold.
- 3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder + 2 T very hot water (for marbling)
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and Grease and Flour two 8 inch pans. In the bowl of your mixer, whisk the dry ingredients (except for the cocoa) for 30 seconds to combine. With your mixer on low to medium speed, slowly add the pieces of butter, a few pieces at a time. Mix until the dry ingredients are crumbly and look like coarse sand. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure there is no dry flour. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla until blended. Method is important when using Reverse Creaming. With the mixer on LOW speed VERY SLOWLY add approximately 1/2 of the egg mixture to the dry ingredients, increasing the mixer to medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes. The batter will become thick and fluffy. Scrape the bowl and add the remaining egg mixture in 2 pourings, scraping the bowl and beating for 20 seconds after each addition.
Marbling Instructions..
- * Mix 3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder with 2 Tablespoons very hot water. Stir until smooth & set aside.
- Put 1 1/2 cups cake batter into a medium sized bowl and stir in the chocolate mixture to create chocolate batter. Now it's time to marble our batter in two 8 inch pans.
- Using a large spoon, place 3 large spoonfuls of yellow cake batter into each pan, then 3 spoonfuls chocolate batter. Repeat adding more yellow cake batter. You will see areas of both yellow and chocolate batter. Using an offset spatula or knife (we prefer something appox. 1/2 inch wide), swirl the two colors together to get a marbled effect. Do not overmix.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 30 – 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pans 10 minutes then turn out. (Makes 6 1/2 cups batter)
You can find our Classic Chocolate Buttercream recipe here! It has a wonderful chocolate flavor, is simple to make, and pipes beautifully!:Classic Chocolate Buttercream.
If you love Marble Cake, you should try changing things up a bit sometime with Zebra cake! The same idea as marble cake, only with a zebra print pattern! You can find our free step by step tutorial here: Zebra Cake Tutorial.
Don’t miss our Yellow Cake from scratch recipe! This is the delicious recipe that we based our marble cake recipe on. You can find it here!: Yellow Cake Recipe from Scratch.
Thanks for stopping by! Make sure to check out our full collection of favorite cake and frosting recipes in our Recipes section! If you are interested in learning more about cake decorating, you can find our free cake tutorials here: Free Cake Tutorials Section.
Or, if you are interested in gaining full online access to our entire collection of cake decorating video tutorials (hundreds!) you should consider becoming a member of My Cake School!
You can find all of the details here: Joining Information for MyCakeSchool.com- Online cake Instruction
Hi FaeGoddess, It depends on your serving sizes but you should be fine with the recipe as written for 8 inch pans to get the number of serving you need. Here is a link to serving charts that give batter amounts and number of servings that you will find helpful. Hope all goes well.
link to wilton.com
link to fromkarenskitchen.com
Hey Bebe!! Is it safe to assume that you are using dutched chocolate? Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge! All of you recipes I have tried so far rock!
Hi Tracy, I use unsweetened cocoa in the recipe, not dutch processed.
Thanks for the amazingly quick response!
: )
Is it possible to use this in a bread pan to make it a loaf?
Hi Shardonnay, We have not tried the recipe in a loaf pan, but I think you could do so. Fill the pan 1/2 to 2/3’s full. Position the oven rack to the lower third of your oven. I’m not positive on the time since we have not used this pan but for a 9 x 5 pan bake at 350 degrees for maybe 50 minutes ……for a 8×4 loaf pan 35 minutes. Keep an eye on it and when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached it is done. If the top begins to get too dark, cover loosely with a piece of aluminum foil.
I made this recipe without the chocolate buttercream and it turned out to be amazing. Thank you for sharing. My family loves this marble cake.
Hi Simran, I’m happy to hear that you enjoyed it! Thanks so much for your feedback.
Hi Melissa! Can I safety cut the ingredients into half if I want to make batter enough for one loaf pan? Thank you!
Hi Kay, We have not done that but I think it would be fine to do so.
Hi BeBe,
It worked!!! Lovin’ your recipe! Thanks for sharing!
Hi Kay, Great! It looks good, thanks for letting me know!
Melissa can we use melted chocolate instead of cocoa. I have used the cocoa before and found it to come out a bit light in flavor
Hi Rosangel, Yes, it will be fine to use melted chocolate
Can I substitute the butter and use oil instead?
Hi Telma, This recipe uses the reverse creaming method, I am not sure it would work using all oil. The recipe can be rewritten into the conventional mixing method but even so I don’t know how the texture of the cake would be using all oil, since I have not tried it.
Hi. Can i use all purpose flour instead of cake flour. Many thanks!
Hi Hema, If you do not have cake flour, this is the substitution you can use. For each cup of all purpose flour in a recipe, remove 2 Tablespoons flour and replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch. For this recipe measure out 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, remove 5 Tablespoons of the flour and replace with 5 Tablespoons cornstarch. Whisk to blend the cornstarch into the flour and proceed with the recipe.
Hi,
Can I use the conventional method of mixing for this recipe? Will it work? I have had no luck with getting any height to the cake using the Reverse method. My layers are always about an inch high once cooled. If using melted chocolate, do I use the same amount as cocoa and will I need to bake extra time if using melted chocolate? Thanks!
Hi Gloria, Yes, it will be fine to use the conventional mixing method with this recipe. I recommend writing it out and counting the ingredients to make sure nothing is left out. Using melted chocolate in the same amount will be fine and the baking time will remain the same.
How does this recipe work for cupcakes? I have 4 dozen cupcakes to make for the end of the month. It’s for a baby shower and marble cake is the mama to be’s favorite.
Also, could the zebra effect be used for cupcakes?
Hi Beth, The recipe should work well for cupcakes. If you would prefer the conventional mixing method, I posted it in the Comments under the cake recipe on 4-3-18. We have not tried the zebra effect for cupcakes but the link below will show you an example. I think you will find it helpful.
link to lovefromtheoven.com
Perfect. Thank you so much.