Best Marble Cake Bake Off

Looking to make the best marble pound cake recipe? We tried 9 popular marble cake recipes in search of the best!

Although I embarked on this bake off hoping to find the best marble layer cake, it quickly became clear that most people were interested in finding the best marble LOAF cake. Which, after thinking about it, does seem to be the more common offering in coffee shops and bakeries. Rarely do you find a marble layer cake in the wild (which I think we need to change)!

When it comes to loaf cakes, I feel like they are often a quickbread consistency like zucchini bread or a tight-crumbed pound cake style. Most of the recipes in this bake off fell into the latter category. So let’s get into the search for the best marble cake recipe!

METHODOLOGY // RESULTS // FACTORS // ANALYSIS // RECOMMENDATIONS

Methodology

• 38 total tasters
• All ingredients were measured by weight according to King Arthur (unless the recipe specified weights)
• All recipes were baked the day of tasting except Matt Adler, which specified that it’s better after sitting overnight
• Recipes were baked in greased, parchment-lined 9×5 loaf pans. (I halved The Sunday Baker recipe to fit in a loaf pan; I baked full batches of all other recipes.)
• Each taster ranked each cake on a scale from 0-10 for flavor, texture and overall as a whole.
• No recipes specified using natural cocoa, so I used Dutch-process cocoa (Droste) across the board.
• I omitted any frostings/icings/streusel so that the tasting was focused on the cake only.

Ingredients

• Gold Medal bleached all-purpose flour
• King Arthur bleached cake flour
• Trader Joe’s unsalted butter
• Kerrygold unsalted butter
• Daisy sour cream
• Droste Dutch-process cocoa
• Kirkland vanilla extract
• Diamond Crystal kosher salt
• Imperial granulated sugar

What is marble cake?

To set the stage for this bake off: marble cake is a cake that combines two different colored batters, typically swirled together to create a beautiful marbled pattern. (Zebra cake is a similar variation of marble cake.)

Marble cake reportedly first originated in Germany (called “marmorkuchen”), where a light cake batter was marbled with a darker batter typically colored with molasses, spices, dried fruit like raisins, or coffee.

Unlike the original spiced version, the modern version of marble cake in America almost always consists of a vanilla cake batter swirled with a chocolate cake batter. And quite often, the cake base is similar to pound cake. In many cases, you can think of marble cake like a chocolate and vanilla swirled pound cake!

Results

After analyzing the data from 33 tasters, results of the crowd rankings are below!

Although I’ll list my top-level recommendations below, I always recommend reading through the entire blog post to decide which sounds best to you. I truly believe all of these recipes are delicious and would be someone’s ideal marble cake.

I also believe that baker’s error definitely occurred in this bake off as I have a tendency to err on overbaking rather than underbaking. (My nightmare is cutting into a raw cake right before serving it to tasters!)

So some of these cakes are probably a touch drier than ideal, but I think the main sentiment was captured. I feel fairly confident here because as a test, I remade the King Arthur cake and paid careful attention to not overbake it. Ultimately, it was only a smidge more moist than the original version.

These recipes vary quite widely in terms of texture and chocolate-forwardness. As delicious as they already are, I think they would all be vastly improved by a coating of chocolate ganache! (This topping particularly caught my eye.)

Recommendations for the Best Marble Cake

Erika’s pick: Sohla El-Waylly

Best moist pound cake: Cleo Buttera, Matt Adlard

Best classic pound cake style: Rich and Delish, Sohla El-Waylly, King Arthur

Most dense and brownie-like: Luisa Weiss

For a more airy, cakey texture: Sugar Salt Magic, Cleo Buttera, Geeky Bakehouse

Easiest to make: Geeky Bakehouse

Factors

My main takeaway from this bake off is that all of the marble cakes erred on the drier side (similar to most pound cakes). And tasters wanted more moisture! This was reflected in the results: Cleo Buttera was far and away the moist cake. Matt Adlard, for example, may have slipped into 3rd place in large part thanks to the hydrating simple syrup soak rather than the merits of the cake flavor/texture itself.

I felt confident that the reason for Cleo Buttera’s moisture was a high ratio of fat. But while on the high end, it actually wasn’t outstanding (see below chart). It appears the combination of relatively more fat, sugar and dairy all worked in tandem to create a really lusciously moist cake.

And now for a discussion on the factors behind a great marble cake!

Type of fat

There were only 3 different permutations of fat type in this bake off:

• Oil only: Although I love oil-based cakes for their ease, our solitary oil-based cake (Geeky Bakehouse) didn’t fare so well in this bake off. While the texture was fine (erring more on a quickbread/banana bread-like texture rather than pound cake), the flavor left most people wanting. I actually think this cake could be quite pleasing as a layer cake topped with a chocolate buttercream. But as a standalone loaf cake, I’m still looking for my dream oil-based marble cake.
• Oil and butter: Rich and Delish and Sugar Salt Magic both fared well in this bake off! Both had beautifully even, tender crumbs that I loved. While R&D uses a 1:1 ratio of butter to oil, SSM uses a 2:1 ratio with less overall fat and sugar. SSM had a more open, airy crumb vs. R&D’s perfectly tight yet soft pound cake-like crumb, but I think this discrepancy was due to differences in mixing methods.
• Butter only: Although butter-only cakes can tend feel drier on the palate, I think the butter-forward cakes tended to do better thanks to the flavor boost. Butter is an extremely important pillar of pound cake, and this essentially turned out to be a pound cake (with chocolate) bake off. However, it’s clearly important to pair butter with a hydrating agent like sour cream or buttermilk to achieve the right level of moisture.

Types of dairy

• Milk: King Arthur and Luisa Weiss were the only recipes to use plain milk as the hydrating agent. While I absolutely loved the velvety texture on King Arthur, the flavor felt quite bland. I think this could be greatly improved by simply switching to buttermilk. Meanwhile, Luisa uses just 3 tbsp of milk, using eggs as the main moistening agent in her recipe. To me, this isn’t nearly enough wet ingredients to get a soft and tender crumb. I think it was a combination of the melted chocolate in the batter along with the lack of additional hydration that contributed to the more stiff and heavy crumb.
• Heavy cream: Matt Adlard was the only recipe to use heavy cream. I suspected that the added richness would only benefit the crumb. In the end, I enjoyed the soft, rich crumb but quite unexcited about the flavor. I love heavy cream in certain applications, but I don’t think it’s my ideal move here.
• Sour cream/buttermilk: To me, the acidic nature of sour cream or buttermilk is the clear winner when it comes to marble loaf cakes. It adds a bit of tang and dimension to an otherwise potentially boring vanilla + chocolate cake!

Chocolate cake portion

There were a few strategies that these recipes employed to create a chocolate swirl:

• Melted chocolate: Tasbih notes in her post that melted dark chocolate produces a “bold chocolate flavor” along with a texture that’s “more brownie-like and dense.” This definitely proved true in the only two recipes that used melted chocolate (Luisa Weiss and Sunday Baker). The chocolate flavor was far more pronounced compared to others! But in the case of the Sunday Baker (melted chocolate + cocoa), the chocolate swirl was quite dry. And in the case of Luisa Weiss, the chocolate swirl was dense and brownie-like (some people loved this, some didn’t). I would consider adding a bit of sugar to the chocolate swirl if you go the route of melted chocolate.
• Cocoa with hot water: While chocolate can create a dense texture, cocoa can immediately dry out a batter. Blooming cocoa (mixing it with hot water) is meant to bring out more flavor by exploding the cell walls of the cocoa to release the flavor. Interestingly, Rich and Delish and Sugar Salt Magic have very comparable ratios so they provided a good test between bloomed cocoa vs. non-bloomed cocoa. And I noticed a much more pronounced cocoa flavor in Sugar Salt Magic (bloomed) while Rich and Delish felt fairly indistinguishable between the vanilla and chocolate sections. If given the choice, always bloom your cocoa for more flavor!
• Cocoa with additions: Even with the increased flavor thanks to blooming the cocoa, there’s still the drying issue to contend with. King Arthur uses a mix of butter and cocoa, which I expected to perform better than cocoa mixed with milk or water. However, as delightful as I found the texture, the flavor felt especially bitter (perhaps due to a higher overall ratio of cocoa).
  
  Tasbih seemed to have nailed the right mix of adding milk, sugar, butter and baking soda to her cocoa batter. This yielded a balanced, present chocolate flavor with a texture that remains consistent with the vanilla cake.

Overall, my main complaint was that most cakes didn’t have enough chocolate flavor. While bloomed cocoa batters might be sufficient for some people, I’d be curious to play around with a batter that contains melted chocolate + additional leavener/sweeteners.

How to swirl the batter

Again, the recipes varied quite a bit on directions for swirling the vanilla and chocolate batters together! Here were the main techniques:

• Alternating lines of batter: Piping lines of batter into the pan before swirling with a knife. This was my least favorite method as I didn’t think this swirl was very different from the checkerboard/pouring methods and I don’t think piping equipment is necessary. (Matt Adlard)
• Checkerboard method: Scooping or piping alternating blobs of chocolate and vanilla into the pan. I found this method to be a bit labor-intensive compared to pouring and didn’t necessarily lend itself to an amazing marble pattern. (Geeky Bakehouse, Sohla El-Waylly)
• Pouring batter directly into the pan, alternating chocolate and vanilla (no swirling): King Arthur insists no swirling is needed (way to take away the most fun part of baking a marble cake!). This method is ideal if you want VERY distinct sections of chocolate vs. vanilla cake. But if you actually want a beautiful marbled swirl, this doesn’t do it. (King Arthur)
• Pouring batter directly into the pan, alternating chocolate and vanilla: My favorite technique! I think this method is both easy and yields a really delightful swirl. While The Sunday Baker directs only 3 layers of batter (vanilla chocolate vanilla), the other two recipes instruct you to layer batter by the 1/4 or 1/2 cup before swirling. I preferred the latter technique for a really fun layered, marbled effect.
  
  But the fewer layers of batter, the more solid your cake sections will be. Cleo Buttera also offers more of a tunneling option that will result in more of a King Arthur cake effect. (Rich and Delish, Sugar Salt Magic, The Sunday Baker, Luisa Weiss, Cleo Buttera.)

Analysis of the Best Marble Cake Recipes

The Sunday Baker: a finely crumbed, relatively dry cake

As a huge fan of the fine crumb that reverse creaming yields, I included this recipe for its reverse-creamed technique. It doesn’t use exactly what I think of as the typical reverse creaming (mixing butter directly into the flour mixture). Rather, Mark adds the butter and part of the wet mixture to mix first before adding the rest of the wet mixture. With a butter and sour cream-based batter, this recipe is otherwise fairly standard. This was one of two recipes to use melted chocolate in the chocolate cake portion instead of cocoa. I was curious to see how it would compare to the others!

While I loved the look and feel of the fine, tight crumb as I sliced this cake, I fear that it may have been the victim of overbaking. The chocolate section felt particularly dry and crumbly with not much flavor to differentiate it besides a bit of bitterness. This did have one of the lowest ratios of sugar (which could also contribute to the dryness). If I made this again, I’d consider adding some sugar to the chocolate batter.

A little bit of tang came through in the vanilla section, but overall the texture felt too crumbly. I’d be curious to remake this with a careful eye to not overbake it.

Taster comments:

• I liked the cocoa flavor of this slice but it was a bit too crumbly to rank it high.
• Very dry, sticks to the mouth. I did like the kick of cocoa flavor but has a little bit more of a bitter chocolate aftertaste.
• Strong pound cake vibes. Nice deep chocolatey flavor!!! Pretty dry though which isn’t my favorite.
• Reminds me of a Milano. A little chalky, crumbly and dry.
• Cake was dry and crumbly. Chocolate was a little too bitter for my taste.
• Least favorite, flavor is fine but too dry

Geeky Bake House: an airy, somewhat moist cake with a lightly sweet, mild flavor

I chose this recipe as our single oil-based marble cake recipe. With half a cup of oil along with 1/3 cup of sour cream, this seemed like it could be a very solid, moist and flavorful loaf. The chocolate portion of this cake uses Dutch-process cocoa bloomed in hot water. This cake uses the checkerboard technique of adding alternate batters before swirling with a knife and ended up with a gorgeously swirled cake!

While this cake was more moist than some, it was oddly simultaneously spongy and stiff-crumbed. Overall, the flavor felt a bit bland and just lightly sweet with barely any distinction in the chocolate flavor. As it sat over a few days, it did get more moist and relaxed into a more spongy texture. This was a very easy cake to throw together, but it wasn’t memorable enough in flavor or texture for me to repeat.

Taster comments:

• Very spongy in the best way possible. Wonderful moist texture without being too moist. Chocolate was not overpowering. Open crumb texture
• Moist with a bouncy texture and perfect balance of sweetness – the chocolate is about equal in both visual and taste.
• It had a good amount of chocolate flavor, but a little dry and grainy. Flavor was almost too buttery
• A little bit bitter, wish the flavors were punchier
• Texture was dry and spongy, the flavor was just fine, nothing really special or bad about it
• Looser crumb, not as flavorful. Chocolate is a bit more artificial-tasting and no strong vanilla notes.

King Arthur: a finely-crumbed pound cake with deep chocolate ribbons

King Arthur’s recipe stood out for two main reasons. Instead of using an acidic, tenderizing dairy like buttermilk or sour cream, the recipe only calls for regular milk in the batter. It was also the only recipe to call for mixing melted butter along with cocoa into the chocolate portion of the cake.

This was one of two recipes that calls for beating the batter for a full 5 minutes (but unlike Sohla, the beating occurs after adding the eggs), which results in a lusciously light and whipped batter. The recipe notes that there’s no need to swirl the batters to get a marbled effect–simply alternating the batters into the pan takes care of most of the work.

If you want solid blocks of vanilla vs. chocolate batter, I would agree with this. However, visually I missed the classic swirls. Although the crumb looked extremely fine, tender and invitingly dark on the chocolate side, this was quite dry. I did have to bake this cake for an extra 20 minutes to keep the top from being jiggly, so there was definitely an element of baker’s error. However, I did rebake a half batch of this cake just to see how badly I had overbaked it. While I found it slightly more moist, it still seems to be a drier cake by nature.

I think the addition of butter to the chocolate swirl did help keep the consistency even across the cake. This was a cake where the chocolate part tasted quite distinct from the vanilla cake. It was a bit bitter, so this is another case where I’d like to add just a little sugar to the chocolate portion. I feel conflicted about this cake–I absolutely loved the texture, but I wanted it a tad sweeter and less dry.

Taster comments:

• Very nice marbling, you get both chocolate and vanilla in every bite. Very even crumb and even moisture level all around. Could’ve been a little softer/moister.
• This was such a classic to end on! Dense, yellow cake vanilla flavor. Yum.
• More layers rather than marble. Cohesive flavor, good crust. Not too sweet
• Good all around – nice texture, a bit denser than some of the spongiest samples but not dry. It had a vanilla-y flavor and I could really taste the chocolate.
• Slightly dry on the inside but really solid crumb.
• it was like the average of all the cakes. kinda fluffy kinda cornbread. a bit of flavor
• So dry. Became a paste in my mouth

Luisa Weiss: a coarse, dense, brownie-like crumb with intense chocolate flavor

Many other recipes (such as Smitten Kitchen and The Sunday Baker) reference Luisa’s recipe as inspiration. Luisa’s recipe is unique for several reasons: this recipe is the only one that calls for European-style butter specifically. It also doesn’t call for any added dairy, instead adding 4 eggs to moisten the (slightly stiff) batter.

More unique is the use of bittersweet chocolate (along with milk and cocoa powder) in the chocolate batter and white chocolate in the vanilla batter. While commenters note that you can’t really taste the white chocolate, I was very curious how the added chocolate would affect the flavor and texture.

Ultimately, there was a slightly more caramelized, fuller flavor note in the vanilla cake than other cakes. The chocolate portion was deeply rich, dense and dark like a brownie. However, I was disappointed in the coarse, heavy and relatively dry crumb. I think the lack of sour cream/milk/buttermilk in the cake renders the crumb pretty dry, and the addition of melted chocolate doesn’t help. The egg-heavy batter gives a richness, but also perhaps a stiffness. If you’re looking for a more intense flavor and a dense, brownie-like crumb, this is a great one to try!

Taster comments:

• Super dense and firm crust. Texture and chocolate flavor is almost like a brownie! The flavor is delicious, but literally tastes like a brownie. Would eat again
• Oh wow this one is heaven, could eat the entire loaf. The flavor and texture reminds me of a brownie. If a bakery sold this I would buy it regularly.
• This cake is particularly rich and feels indulgent. I couldn’t eat a lot of it but it ticks all the boxes. Excellent!
• Strongest rich chocolate flavor of all of the cakes. It was quite dense but the flavors made up for it
• I liked it! At first it seemed a bit dry, but as I ate it actually had a very nice chewy texture. More golden butter sort of taste to it.
• Dark chocolate made it very bitter and the cake was also very dense. Dark chocolate flavor overwhelms everything and essentially makes it a chocolate cake.
• Very dry, crumbly and hard cake. Too chocolate forward.

Sohla El-Waylly: a velvety, almost sponge cake-like texture with an overriding buttery flavor

As the winner of the pound cake bake off, Sohla’s recipe was one I had to try. Her marble cake is simply a variation on her pound cake, which is enriched with sour cream and an additional egg yolk. A simple mixture of cocoa powder and milk or water creates the marbled swirl. What I think really sets the texture apart is whipping the butter and sugar for 6-8 minutes before adding the eggs. As long as all the ingredients are tempered properly, you’ll end up with a dreamily smooth and light batter.

Even while slicing into this cake, I could tell the texture was distinct from the others. To me, this had the most bakery-worthy, cottony smooth crumb that is both tight-crumbed yet soft, fluffy and a tiny bit bouncy and spongy. It does err on the drier side, same as in the pound cake bake off. Something about the light, perfectly fine crumb reminds me of a Sara Lee pound cake or even a gas station vending machine pound cake.

This cake had a dramatically buttery flavor–it almost overpowers the vanilla and the chocolate feels fairly muted. To be fair, Sohla calls for black cocoa as her first choice, but I used Dutch-process cocoa. I’d be curious to try this with black cocoa for more dramatic flavor and color contrast. As a plus, this is probably the cake that aged the best over the course of at least 3 days after. It seemed to get even more moist and cottony. Overall, this was one of my favorite cakes!

Taster comments:

• Perfect cake. Cake was soft and moist and flavors were decent without one overpowering the other.
• Very moist and soft! Reminds me of a pound cake but better. My favorite so far!! The vanilla is so satisfying! The chocolate is perfection. The texture is plush and not spongy. There is a tang coming through, but it’s welcomed. The density is perfect for a bundt cake or loaf style.
• Love the flavor of the vanilla in this one, tastes similar to a sour cream cake almost? Chocolate is not as flavorful as the vanilla but still good. Texture is moist but fluffy. Tastes homemade.
• Pleasant to eat. Actually enjoyed it a lot but it feels and tastes more like pound cake than marble cake.
• I like the sweet, butter-forward flavor, was looking for a little more chocolate flavor. A little on the dry side texture wise.
• Although the texture was (slightly) on the dry side, the crumb more than made up for it.
• It’s a desert in my mouth. Plain flavor and dry.

Sugar Salt Magic: an open-crumbed, lightly moist with a pronounced chocolate flavor

This recipe is quite similar to Sally’s Baking Addiction’s popular recipe and I nearly went with Sally’s recipe. But this recipe calls for buttermilk instead of a combination of sour cream and milk, melted butter instead of creamed, and blooms the cocoa with boiling water. At the last second, I decided I’d be curious to see another melted butter batter, so I went with this recipe!

I loved the marbling pattern on this with the deeply hued cocoa swirls. Happily, the cocoa flavor also came through quite strongly in this cake, which was a rarity. Texturally, this was a little more open like a standard cake (vs. the tight, velvety crumb of Sohla’s). It’s a bit firm and crumbly, yet moist. While I would have liked more flavor from the vanilla portion of the cake, this was a solid pick for an all-around decently moist, chocolate-y cake.

Taster comments:

• More moist than others, very nice texture. Also liked the swirl of chocolate and vanilla. Flavor could’ve been a little stronger but overall very good.
• Very soft texture and satisfying to eat texture-wise. Wanting more flavor though.
• I liked that this one seemed a bit more chocolately. Bit more dense (in a way I liked) and moist.
• Moist and a bit spongy, chocolate has a good flavor, vanilla aspect does not have much flavor
• Texture was good, more moist and rich. Flavor is better than the first one but mostly tastes like vanilla. Still looking for a little bit more intensity in the chocolate flavor to experience that juxtaposition.
• Good texture and I liked the contrast to the crust but a little lackluster flavor

Matt Adlard: a very sweet, moist, not-too-chocolate-y marble cake

I primarily included this recipe for two reasons. It’s the only recipe that uses heavy cream in the batter, and it’s the only recipe that calls for a sugar syrup. However, I almost removed this recipe from contention because its so finicky to make! It calls for mixing the entire vanilla batter–and then doing the entire process over with the chocolate batter.

Matt also calls for using a piping bag to add the batters into the pan (I just used a spoon) and also piping a line of butter down the center to “control the cracking of the cake.” (I also skipped this; I think running a knife down the center accomplishes the same result with far less fuss.) This was also one of two recipes that used melted butter–I’m unsure why butter gets stirred in at the end. Once baked, the cake gets soaked in syrup and chilled overnight.

To me, this was by far the sweetest cake of the bunch. The main flavor that comes through is sugar rather than distinct chocolate and vanilla flavors. However, the texture was beautifully fluffy and airy. This felt like it could easily be adapted into a layer cake over some of the other drier, more pound cake-like textures. I really think the addition of the sugar syrup gave this cake a leg up in a field of contenders where most were quite dry. While the finicky process would keep me from making this specific cake again, I think utilizing the sugar syrup for any other cake would be a great move.

Taster comments:

• This was really good. Wonderful flavor. Light and airy inside with a great crumb.
• Moist and chewy. I prefer this texture so I liked this one. Love the vanilla on this one, but didn’t taste any chocolate
• Like the moist top especially (was it brushed with a simple syrup? tasted almost like a Sara Lee pound cake in terms of almost sticky moistness. But weak chocolate flavor.
• Sweeter than most of the others, I like the flavor. She is short and stout and the crust is sugary and good.
• Very moist and fluffy top. Drier and dense bottom. Great flavor at the top.
• Rather sweet. Lacking in depth of flavors so you just get sweetness instead of chocolate or buttery vanilla.

Rich and Delish: a spongy, velvety yet moist pound cake

To be frank, I was most attracted to this recipe because of its impressive height in photos. So often, most loaf recipes are squatter than my preference. The overall ratio of this loaf’s ingredients (4 eggs, 1/2 cup more flour than average) promised a voluminous loaf. Like Sugar Salt Magic, this was an oil and butter-based recipe that uses a mixture of buttermilk and sour cream.

Despite the regular creaming method with no excessive beating of the eggs or butter, this crumb came out SO finely crumbed. It was comparable to Sohla’s, but more moist! (Interestingly, Sohla’s got more moist as it aged whereas this got a touch drier.) Personally, I found this cake just slightly more bland compared to Sohla’s and I couldn’t put my finger on why. Perhaps it’s the added richness from an all-butter cake with a slightly higher ratio of sugar + the richness from an extra egg yolk? The chocolate part was definitely on the bland side; I had a hard time distinguishing it from the vanilla portion. (Blooming the cocoa in hot water could help for next time.)

Overall, this was my second favorite loaf. Similar to Sohla, this also reminded me of a Sara Lee pound cake–it’ll almost melt in your mouth! It’s a solid loaf that I think most will love.

Taster comments:

• Texture is soooo good, the cake is moist and not too dense, the crust is soft, vanilla and chocolate flavor both come out nicely. Delish. Similar texture to a Starbucks loaf
• Texture is SO good. Nice tight crumb and very moist…almost melts in your mouth. The flavor isn’t anything insane but is very good still. It’s all sort of one flavor instead of being able to distinguish chocolate from vanilla.
• The vanilla and chocolate flavors are more mild compared to the other samples. The texture is really nice and soft. Honestly a wonderful bite. This sample is not as dense and would work well in a layer cake. The sample is a little sweeter compared to others
• Incredible airy, moist texture that had a bland flavor without much richness in the chocolate or vanilla. The chocolate wasn’t as strong as I hoped by the color.
• Texture was super fluffy. flavor was very buttery. wish it was more chocolatey
• Very fluffy and spongy. Inoffensive. There was almost no flavor. The flavor that was there was more cake than…marble.

Cleo Buttera: a moist, plush, open-crumbed loaf with a balanced chocolate flavor

Although this recipe is supposed to be baked in a bundt, I baked it in a loaf pan given my above concerns about a squat loaf. This was the only recipe to add cornstarch in addition to flour (to mimic the effect of cake flour). It calls for butter, a generous amount of sour cream, milk and an extra egg yolk. Similar to Sohla, you beat the butter and sugar for up to 5 minutes in order to get a really fluffy batter.

The main differentiating factor was the chocolate cake. Instead of simply mixing in cocoa, Tasbih calls for a mixture of cocoa, milk, butter, sugar and a pinch of extra baking soda to ensure a texture that’s just as fluffy and sweet as the vanilla cake.

However, the final crumb could not have turned out more differently than Sohla’s very finely-crumbed pound cake. This was markedly the most moist loaf with a plush, soft crumb that feels more closely related to banana bread than a typical dry-leaning pound cake. It’s quite sweet, with a distinctly chocolate-y portion that lacks the bitterness of others. It also yielded the promised consistent texture between the chocolate and vanilla cake!

I could see this working well as a layer cake in addition to the loaf form factor. A huge crowd pleaser for a reason!!

Taster comments:

• GREAT flavor and texture. Moist and delicious. My favorite by far.
• Love the texture on this one. Feels almost like a marble banana bread and I do love banana bread. Good chocolate flavor. Really can taste the chocolate in this one, but may overwhelm that buttery vanilla taste you expect to have battling the chocolate in a marble cake
• The texture is a very open moist sponge. The most moist of all of them. The chocolate is very strong without being bitter. This one could also work in layer cakes. Love the caramelization on the ends.
• This was very good. A great mix of vanilla and chocolate with a great texture in both the loaf and crumb. Solid.
• Moist and dense, very deep chocolate flavor. I really like this one but it was more on the like banana bread side than cake side
• Very sweet like those half brownie half Madeleine duet bites. Somewhat oily, texture is stiff and crumbly.

Conclusion

Hope you enjoyed this marble cake bake off! If you have any other bake offs you’d like to see in the future (or more marble cake recipes for me to try), feel free to leave them in the comments.

If you’re based in NYC and would like to join as a taster for one of my upcoming bake offs, make sure to subscribe to my Substack newsletter where I send out bake off invites!

If you enjoyed this bake off, you may also enjoy these:

• Best vanilla cake bake off
• Chocolate cake bake off
• Best lemon loaf bake off
• Yellow cake bake off
• Best sprinkle cake bake off