With swirls of vanilla and chocolate batter, no slice of this marble pound cake is ever the same. Dress up a slice with chocolate sauce or ice cream.
When I was a kid, the homemade dessert I asked my mom for the most was pistachio marble bundt cake.
I am pretty sure that was my first introduction to pistachios.
She found the recipe inside a pudding box. I still have the wrapper. It’s a memento from my childhood.
And I love anything that’s marbled from a twist of chocolate and vanilla soft serve to cake.
What’s there not to like when you don’t have to decide between two flavors?
It has been on my to-bake list to come up with a from-scratch version that skips the cake mix and instant pudding, but I’m a little intimidated that it won’t live up to the original.
For now, I am sticking to vanilla and chocolate and not introducing pistachios to the mix in my marble pound cake.
With plenty of butter and vanilla extract, I don’t think pound cake gets enough credit. Maybe it’s because it isn’t baked in a fancy pan or doesn’t involve layers and frosting.
Pound cakes are so simple to bake and you can serve them with a scoop of ice cream or chocolate sauce to dress up a slice.
My son adores this marble pound cake. For the longest time he told me he didn’t like cake. I had to negotiate with him to take a bite.
I know that sounds really bad. Cake is not a vegetable. I understand!
My husband and I are just trying to get our son past the point of saying he doesn’t like a food, activity or place before he gives it a try.
Now that he’s such a fan of marble pound cake. I have him do most of the work.
Usually if I’m photographing something for the blog, I am very conscious of how things look, but the bigger the mess, the better the marble.
To start, we combine the dry ingredients in a bowl: flour, baking powder and salt.
In a small bowl, we whisk together melted butter and cocoa powder.
Then we beat together the softened butter with sugar followed by the eggs and vanilla extract.
We take a cup of the vanilla batter and stir it into the cocoa mixture to create the chocolate batter.
I like to leave it to my son to alternate scoops of chocolate and vanilla batter and do the swirl.
Once the marble loaf cake is baked and cooled, there is so much excitement in the kitchen to slice the loaf revealing a different pattern on each piece.
PrintWith swirls of vanilla and chocolate batter, no slice of this marble pound cake is ever the same. Dress up a slice with chocolate sauce or ice cream.
Adapted from Food & Wine March 2003
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