Marble cake recipe – a simple cake with no frosting needed, perfect for kids and adults alike.
I grew up eating marble cake. It’s almost a comfort food for me – warm, spongy marble cake fresh out of the oven served with cold milk or “Boost” when I get back from school. Ah, bliss. While a good chocolate cake is always on top of my favourite cakes list, marble cake was a very close second as a child.
Amma baked pretty often when I was a kid so I don’t remember us buying this from outside during the early years of my childhood. When baking a cake was in the plans, she would take out her cream pot and churn it make soft cloudy butter. I don’t think we ever bought butter during those days. Any butter that was in the fridge for a few days was made into golden ghee.
When I started college, a family friend opened up a bakery called Johns and Pauls. They sold the best marble cake in Kottayam at the time. Since they opened shop, I don’t think we’ve made this cake at home.
For other fabulous tried and tested cake recipes check out apple streusel cake, chocolate cake in microwave (in 7 minutes), tutti frutti cake, and also this pressure cooker cake recipe.
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Marble Cake Recipe
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 40 mins
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
- Category: Cake
- Method: Baking
Description
A simple butter cake with vanilla and chocolate batter swirled together to create a marbled look. A favourite for kids, this cake needs no frosting, just good quality butter to make it taste amazing!
Ingredients
- 2 cups plain flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- A pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter)
- 1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- 100 gm unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup milk
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C / 350F
- Grease a cake tin of choice with some butter. I used my silicone bundt pan which needs no greasing.
- Place the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla essence and milk in a bowl.
- Beat slowly with a whisk to moisten, then beat with an electric mixer (or vigorously by hand) at medium speed for about two minutes until the batter is smooth.
- Reserve three-fourth cup batter and pour the remainder into the cake pan.
- Stir cocoa into the three-fourth cup reserved batter. You can add cocoa to more of the batter depending on which flavour you want dominating.
- Drop the chocolate batter by the spoonfuls on top of the white batter.
- Using a knife, swirl the cocoa batter into the white batter to give it a marbled effect.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes in the preheated oven. Check with a skewer to see if the cake is done.
- Remove and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
- Marble cake is delicious without any frosting but a light dusting of icing sugar won’t hurt.
Notes
I have tried this marble cake recipe with salted butter and unsalted butter. Both taste fine (add a fat pinch of salt if using unsalted butter) and I would recommend using the best quality butter you can get your hands on
The batter is meant to be a bit thick and this is perfect.
When swirling the cake batter, don’t over do it or the batters will mix together and turn beige
The crust needs to turn a golden brown so bake as long as a skewer inserted into the cake comes out with moist crumbs
Keywords: marble cake
Few images of baking marble cake
Drop white and chocolate batters into the cake pan by the spoonfuls, alternating as you go
Swirl gently with a pointed knife or skewer
Bake until the crust is golden brown
Tried this recipe and the cake turned out well. I found this recipe really easy, as everything can be done in a single bowl. 😀 Thanks!
Thanks Hannah, glad you liked the marble cake recipe!
Have made this every time i wanted to bake a marble cake n it turns out yummy every time! my family including my 2.5 yr old daughter loves it.. thank u.. keep up the great work!
can I make this recipe in pressure cooker?? please rep me soon☺
yes
I just tried out this recipe and it turned out really good. This recipe was great! And so simple too. Thank you so much, this is gonna be my go-to recipe for marble cake 🙂
thank you gayatri!
Can i use oil instead of butter??
sure you can but the texture of the cake will not be as soft as when you use butter.
Hi Nags, tried the cake.it ws superb.thanks fr the recipe
thanks a lot sneha
Hey nag!! I have tried biscotti n banana cake from ur cake receipes.. They were perfect .. I loved ur marble cake pic so much that I tried it, it’s yummy but the texture is a bit hard n moist at the bottom ..any idea why it turned out so I am new to baking so it would be helpful if you guide me on this..
Hello Lav, so glad you like my recipes 🙂 It’s hard to tell what went wrong in a baking recipe without knowing steps you followed or seeing what the issue is. It sounds like your baking temperature was low and the cake was not cooked properly? You also need to aerate the batter more during preparation to ensure it’s not dense when baked
This is my go to recipe every time I tbake- every single time I ry this it comes out perfect. thanks so much for putting this up! Palalvi
Hi Nags,
I sooo want to try this out. I don't have an oven with convection mode. Can I bake this using microwave mode? Please let me know.
Thanks 🙂
no you can't bake this cake in the microwave
Hi there. The current Food on Friday on Carole's Chatter is all about favourite foods from childhood. I do hope you link this lovely one in. This is the link . Please do pop back to check out some of the other links. Have a great week.
Tried it today. It came out really well…thanks for such a simple and nice recipe 🙂 keep posting!!!:)
Hi Nags ,
What can I substitute the egg with ? Looking forward to bake this for d'vali . Thanks
you can use any regular egg substitute for this cake. a quick google search should get you the exact measurements.
Tried it out today, turned out to be amazing! I did add some granulated sugar to the chocolate batter though, because I felt it was not as sweet as it should be. Turns out I was right.
Nevertheless, really easy and wonderful recipe. thankyou!
Hi Nags,
I love all your recipes. It would be really great if you could post videos of the recipes as well because i am just a beginner in cooking and sometimes i get it wrong. It would make it a little easier to follow instructions of you could post videos.
Thanks and keep cooking 🙂
Just finished making this cake and it was just awesome….never come across such an easy recipe anywhere…..even a beginner can make it with ease as there is no chance of committing a mistake if u follow the steps right…
hi nags, the pics in ur blog are really grt.. tempting.. so i went ahead and tried the marble cake( posted it on my blog… am a beginner.. started teh blog before but now am actually hooked to blogging)..
the cake came out very well… i felt it could be a little more sweet.. thanks for the recipe..
i have backlinked the recipe on my blog… i hope that's fine..
thank u nags!!:)
The cake is very dense which i like, but it is not sweet at all. You need frosting on it or else theres no flavor. Other than no flavor which is because theres no sugar i feel its good.
Hi Nag! I came across your blog looking for marble cake recipes and yours stood out among the rest. Tried the above recipe and it came out really nice. The cake is moist, soft and just the right density for me. The pix provided are also awesome and helps me approximate the required consistency/color etc. to ensure i'm on the right path while attempting it first time. This is also the first cake I did with 1 cup milk, which I find likable. I'll make this some more for sure – am keeping the recipe 🙂
Here, if you don't mind me sharing an easy cake recipe that I always make as a token of thanks for the recipe above. Its moist but eggless and butterless – suitable for vegetarians:
Dry Ingredients:
1.5 Cup flour (normal/cake flour)
1.0 Cup castor sugar
3.0 Tablespoons cocoa powder
0.5 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
0.5 teaspoon salt
5.0 Tablespoon vege oil (any vege cooking oil)
1.0 Tablespoon vinegar (normal kitchen white vinegar)
1.0 teaspoon vanilla essence
1.0 Cup cold water
Method: Mix all dry ingredients proper. Make three separate holes in the mix – one to put the oil, one for the vinegar and one for vanilla. Lastly, pour the cold water over all the set up in the bowl, creating a big mess. Mix well. Sit for 1 or 2 minutes for it to infuse and do a final stir before pouring into cake pan. Oven temp ard 180 deg C. Bake for about 30 minutes.
There, hope you like it. It really is very simple cake. It wouldn't have the buttery cake taste, but moist nevertheless and not too sweet. Perfect for any ganache / topping. Hope you like it! – HS
Thank you so much HS! It's pretty amazing you took the time out for this. I have seen similar recipes before but hesitated only because of the vinegar. I have white rice vinegar and don't want to go out and buy a bottle of another vinegar. In singapore, i don't know what "regular vinegar" means. Maybe I should take the plunge and try it out!
hi, your cake looks tasty. I am either blind or i just dont see where u have it for how long to cook. I would like to try it but i dont know how long to cook for.
It's in the post 🙂 "Bake for thirty to forty minutes". Just test with a skewer and make sure it comes out dry or with dry crumbs to test if your cake is done. The exact time will depend on type of pan used, oven, etc.
Hi, nice cake will definitely give a try.
you can try substituting with yogurt (1 egg = approx 1/4 cup yogurt) but i haven't tried it in this recipe. or you can try flax seed powder. just look online for the conversion measurement.
Hi, I plan to gift this cake to someone tomorrow. I have made this several times, and it has always turned out great. But I need to make this without eggs now. How can I do that? Please let me know urgently.
Hi Nags tried ur marble cake yestwerday and came out edible. though it could ve been mcokked a bit more..
may be am a first time baker thats the reason it could be!!!
I baked in my samsung convection MW baked for 30mts 180 degree and then 200 degree for another 1 minutes so the top layer got cooked more crisp.
i beleive i should ve done the other way
anyways am hooked on to edible garden and gonna try othrer simple recipes as well,
pls suggest me some basic ones nags
but ur recipe made me beleive that marble cakes can be baked so easily.
loved it !!!
thank u so much
Thank you so much for letting me know your feedback on the marble cake recipe 🙂
hey Nags am a first time baker . like neenu said , I too searched the net on marble cake recipes. honestly ur blog is the one which captivated my desire to bake this same marble cake.. am gonna bake this evening and would update u tomorow.
Hey Nags am a first time baker gonna try ur marble cake today and update you !!
Hello Nags
I am a beginner with respect to baking and marble cake is my all time favorite cake.You dont belive when I decided to bake my first Marble cake I did a proper research on all availble recipies on net and trust me the photo of your marble cake was so appealing that I got the trust in your recipe and my mind was saying that try this out its gonna be really tasty and I did it 🙂 ..and it came out so well both in appearance and taste…now onwards I am gonna be a true follower of Edible Garden..Best wishes for all your forthcoming recipies…
Regards
Neenu
Lovely pics on your site, Nags !! Way to go !!
hi
i made this cake few days back,but i did not get the proper swirls,but it tasted great
thank you for the recipe
check out my cake
http://cheriesstolenrecipes.blogspot.com/2011/06/choco-vanilla-sponge-cake.html
thanks a ton for bringing this to my attention Radhika. much appreciated
I am the one who left the anonymous comment on about the copied post on Shine ! Good to see you are taking steps, hope it resolves soon. I have been a silent reader on your blog for sometime now. I actually recognized you from the comments on the Shine post. Hope to try this cake soon, it looks delicious.
…it's surprising you dint copyright the pictures particularly in this post!
I am sure that person is a half crack…copying 'your' memories!!!
it's freaking annoying, i can understand!
I jus came across this recipe in Shine & was so happy to see Kottayam and Johns & Paul mentioned. Am in the US & miss my hometown, Ktym a lot… The writer in Shine should have given you proper credit by at least mentioning your name.. Anyways, I cant wait to try out your recipe.. Thanks much!
Thank you for coming over to leave me a note. I am very upset and frustrated with her copying my content entirely, even my memories around the marble cake recipe. I hope she takes it down soon. She seems to get a lot of traffic from folks!
thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. i have written to Yahoo and the blog owner. hopefully they take it down. if not, i move to step two 🙂
Hi,
I saw this recipe featured today in Shine from Yahoo!
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/user-post-the-favorite-cake-of-all-kids-marble-cake-recipe-2495320/
I am not sure whether they got your permission. Just thought I will let you know.
Hi, tried this recipe. The cake turned out real moist and nice. Great recipe…
I made this at home last sunday.. and it was awesome.. never knew making a marble cake was so easy.. thanks to u!!
It's so tempting. Will go for this one day 🙂
This pic looks so tempting. I've been drooling over it since the time you posted it and finally made it yday. Thanks so much for this recipe. It was yum ! As I have once told you before, I love ur blog !
My daughter has been begging me to bake something and this seems like a sure winner! Thanks Nags for the lovely way you have written this up to coax me into baking:)
Looks good! Will try it soon. Thanks!
Papacheong
http://home-cook-dishes-for-family.blogspot.com/
Marble Cake is favorite at our home, I always use boxed cake mix, never tried from scratch. Thanks for the Recipe Nags. Will definitely try this one.
-Mythreyi
Yum! Yum! Yum!
Wow.. the cake looks awesome. The contrasting colour swirls and the textures is evident enough to tell about the lovely taste of the cake.. More of a challenge to me but congrats, U have got it right:))
Reva
the design looks so great and yet to easy. I will have to try this. The husband doesn't like dark chocolate and i like dark chocolate.. may be this way we both get to eat what we like 😛
Its looking gr8…i'll surely try this out… 🙂
Mugdha
http://mugdha-cookingfundas.blogspot.com/
cake looks so good,..
Well, no wonder you are so amazingly creative! Nice to know you, 'neighbor'.
It sure is a small world.. John's and Paul's was one of our favorite hang outs when I was in college at CMS, Kottayam.. Never tried their marble cake though.. They had a lots of other exciting stuff on the menu..
We used to buy marble cake often from Anns.. the one at Shastri road.. near the John's and Paul's… Nowadays they have a label of ingredients and its shocking what all they have in there to increase shelf life… things like aluminium sulfate… So much for the good ol' home town bakery…
I'm curious… where ever did u go to school in Kottayam..? I studied at Marian Junior in Kalathipady..
Looks so gud n yum …love tht marble effect
Beautifully marbled, looks so moist..me want Nags!:)
I love how perfect your cake looks like 🙂
Thanks for getting back, Nags. I think I will not go for it then, I prefer the tried and tested recipes from all you bloggers 🙂
Thanks Liby! Although I am not sure if all the credit goes to my school, its still true in many ways 🙂
Confession: When I was in my 8th, I wanted to switch schools to yours 'cuz mine had a lot of.. rich snobs!
Sajitha, cakes and bakes by sanjeev kapoor has a lot of very easy baking recipes for the indian kitchen, i wouldn't highly recommend it though because you can find most of those recipes online. go for it if you are more of a book person 🙂
Liby, I studied in Corpus, and of course I know Anns! Never knew they added chemicals to their cakes though :O
Yummm… the cake looks lovely… i have mever made it in a bundt pan – have to try tht…
Love marble cake, looks moist and wonderful!
http://www.appetitetreats.com
Love the little bundt pan and the cake. Lovely swirls too. A bundt pan is in my shopping list for long!
The cake looks so soft & the patterns on the cake are beautiful!
Beautiful looking marble cake 🙂 Have been planning to bake one ever since I baked my first cake. Now this post is tempting me enough. Bookmarking it and will be baking it asap 🙂
wow, looks perfect!! am gonna try this during the weekend. am back after a long break from the blog world. still trying to get the snap colors proper on my blog!!
Sooooo beautiful cake, feel like having some..
Gosh! this is a stunner…Love!
The cake looks really yummy.Feels like to grab the plate dear.
Lovely marble effect dear…Looks very spongy and airy…Love the cakes from Malayalee bakeries…i am sure there is some secret ingredient there!!!
Shobha
perfectly made cake.Tempting to pick that slice
Looks so wonderful.. wow… love the texture…
http://krithiskitchen.blogspot.com
Herbs & Flowers in my Platter – Coriander/Cilantro
Breakfast Club – Pancakes
I love Marble cakes too.I loved those Chocolate-Orange marble cake loaves we got in Best Bakery right opposite my home in Ernakulam!Love your bright red silicone bundt pan,I've got a similar looking one in Orange!
Super marbled cake !! The effect is really nice…
I have always wanted to try this and urs looks so yum… Thanks for the recipe…
Yumm…want to make this for my daughter…she loves cake..but will never be able to match up to ur expertise Naagu!! Still, will give it a go 🙂
Looks so soft and delicious.. thanks for sharing dear !!
Indian Cuisine
Perfect swirls, Nags! That's a pretty marble cake you've got there.
Marble cake is my favourite too..
Perfect marble cake…
Perfect…bookmarking this…
Looks yummy!! Loved the recipe and texture of the cake,nice colour of the cake!
Drool worthy! Marble cakes are always fascinating with all those pretty swirls 🙂
Hey, I have been eyeing Cakes And Bakes by Sanjeev Kapoor for some time now but I was not able to find any reviews. What do you feel? Worth buying?
Try it Sunita, its not as hard as it looks.
I really love the swirls..so beautifully created..haven't seen such perfect patterns in all the marble cakes I have seen till now..good job!!
Have been wanting to make this since long but always end up in confusion whether the swirls would come out correct…Urs look perfect…Luv it and want to have a slice from the pic 🙂