Marble Pound Cake
As I hunkered down in the first months of the pandemic, I yearned for comfort foods. In the dessert category, this meant pound cakes. I have always had a thing for a slice (or two) of a good pound cake with tea in the afternoon. And they’re not bad for a simple dessert, with some ice cream or fruit.
Pound cakes hold beautifully, freeze extremely well, and easy to ship cross country or drop at a friend’s doorstep. With the abundance of new style Bundt pans being produced (in America) by Nordic Ware there are many options for appearance other than the traditional basic Bundt.
I decided to start with Marble Pound Cake, one of my favorites although I hadn’t made it in several years. The recipe was as good as remembered, needing just an adjustment in baking time and a change to cake flour from all-purpose which yielded a more tender cake.
When re-written with step-by-step instructions it’s a perfect recipe to share, and I did so with friends who had decamped from Boston to their home on Martha’s Vineyard. They are excellent home bakers and cooks with whom I have experienced what seems like a lifetime of wonderful dinners on the island. They dove right in, producing a beautiful cake using a swirl shaped bundt pan. I imagine they truly liked it as it has been reproduced many times during covid isolation and beyond.
The feedback on baking time was interesting, as they reported the cake took longer than my directions. I thought about for a while, and looked at the picture they texted, and realized why – the pan was a different size and design than mine. An important lesson – baking times vary with different sized and shaped pans, as well as those constructed of different materials. This was never an issue when only the one standard 12-cup Bundt pan was available, but this must be kept in mind with the different shapes and sizes now available.
The cake may be simply finished with a light dusting of confectioners’ sugar or a chocolate ganache glaze.
Marble Pound Cake
| Yield: 1 cake | # of Servings: 10 | Method: Creaming |
Ingredients:
- 4 oz (113 g) semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
- 2 ¾ cup (12.75 oz / 362 g) cake flour, sifted
- ¼ tsp (.05 oz / 2 g) salt
- ¼ tsp (.05 oz / 2 g) baking soda
- 1 cup (8 oz / 226 g) unsalted butter, room temperature (68 °F to 70 °F)
- 1 ¾ cup (12.5 oz / 354 g) sugar
- 6 large eggs, room temperature, well beaten
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup sour cream
Ganache Glaze (optional)
¾ cup (6 fl oz) heavy cream
6 oz (170 g) semi or bittersweet chocolate, broken up
Tools and equipment needed:
- 10 to 12 cup bundt or kugelhopf pan.
- Hand held or free-standing mixer with paddle attachment.
- Mixing bowl, large enough for the melted chocolate and â…“ of the batter.
- Rubber spatula, dry and liquid measuring cups, tablespoon measuring set.
Pre-recipe preparations:
- Carefully butter and flour the Bundt pan, or use a spray with flour, such as Baker’s Joy.
- Preheat oven to 350 °F.
Directions:
- Melt chocolate, set aside.
- Mix dry ingredients, set aside
- Beat butter and sugar until very light and fluffy.
- Add vanilla extract to eggs, mix well.
- Slowly add the eggs, in 6 stages, beating well in between each egg addition, scraping down the sides and bottoms of the mixing bowl at the half way point.
- Add the dry ingredients in three stages, alternately with the sour cream in two stages, beginning and ending with the dry. Use a plastic spatula to scrape up from the bottom to ensure a well-blended batter.
- Take â…“ of the batter (1 lb by weight) and add to the melted chocolate, mix well with a plastic spatula.
- To the prepared Bundt pan, add scoops of vanilla batter, next to slightly smaller scoops of chocolate batter. Continue to fill pan with alternating scoops of batter.
- Gently swirl with a butter knife to create the zebra/marble effect.
- Bake for 48 to 55 minutes1, or until a cake tester comes out with just a few crumbs attached. Be careful not to overbake, the cake will go from just underdone to done very quickly.
- Remove pan from oven and place on a cooling rack for 5 minutes.
- Using pot holders or kitchen towel, place cooling rack over pan, and invert cake onto cooling rack so that it is right-side up.
- Let cool to room temperature.
- Marble Poundcake can be kept, wrapped in plastic, at room temperature. The whole cake, or portions of it, may be frozen.
Glazing Marble Poundcake with Ganache:
- In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream just to the boil. Add the chopped semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate. Let sit for 1 minute. Stir gently with a whisk until the chocolate is melted.
- Place poundcake on a cooling rack.
- Pour over the poundcake and let drip down the sides.
Note
11 Baking time will vary depending on size, shape, and material of the Bundt pan.
Baking tips:
- As with all pound cakes, room temperature butter is very important to allow for proper creaming of the butter, sugar, and eggs.
- The batter weighs approximately 3 lbs. For exact measurement of the chocolate batter, weigh out 1 lb. of the batter for mixing in the chocolate.
- Ice cream scoops are very useful for scooping the batters.
- ¼ tsp of almond extract may be added to the batter in step 5.
