Do you know what does "room temperature butter" in recipes mean? For many recipes, especially…
Baking Basics: Marble Pound Cake
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Add this moist marble pound cake recipe to your collection of must-bakes! Buttery loaf of chocolate swirl pound cake with soft, velvety crumbs. Enjoy a slice for your afternoon break or breakfast, with a cup of coffee or tea.
Do pound cakes hold a special place in your cake recipes collection?
I grew up with Sara Lee cakes and old-school bakery butter cakes, so I really enjoy these buttery, dense cakes! Or are you a fan of soft and fluffy chiffon cakes instead?
If you enjoy a slice of rich, moist pound cake, like me, you will probably also love this chocolate marble pound cake!
What Is A Pound Cake?
Pound cakes are quite easy to start baking with! Traditional pound cakes use a 1:1:1:1 ratio for flour, sugar, eggs and butter. This usually make a rich and buttery loaf of cake with dense crumbs.
In this recipe, I’ve included some baking powder for extra lift. Milk is also added for a softer, moister loaf of pound cake.
Like most pound or butter cakes, I’ll recommend to serve this 1 day after baking, so that the flavor develops better after resting.
What Ingredients Do I Need To Make This Marble Pound Cake?
- Unsalted Butter: For butter cakes, I like to use French butter so it doesn’t have the greasy taste. Use room temperature butter.
- Caster Sugar: Sugar for baking has a finer texture. Don’t use the coarse or grainy type of sugar!
- Eggs: Use 55g – 60g eggs.
- Cake or Top Flour: Use low protein flour for a softer cake! Cake/ Top flour is different from plain flour.
- Salt
- Baking Powder
- Whole Milk: Use fresh or UHT milk that states full cream and not the skimmed / low fat ones.
- Vanilla Extract
- Cocoa Powder
Pound Cake Success Tip #1: Softened Butter
It is important to use softened butter at room temperature for this recipe. Be careful not to let the butter get overly softened or melted!
For our sunny weather in Singapore, it probably takes about 10 – 15 mins to soften butter.
How would you know if the butter has softened properly? Use the finger test!
Press and apply light pressure onto the butter, which should still feel slightly cool to touch. Your finger will leave a light indentation on the butter. You should also feel that the butter is still a little firm, with some “resistance” against your finger. If the butter gives way easily, then it might be too soft.
Read this baking basic on room temperature butter for more details!
Pound Cake Success Tip #2: Beating & Mixing
To get a loaf of rich but fluffy pound cake, make sure you take some time to cream the butter and sugar well.
We will beat the butter till it is light and fluffy. Butter in its original state will look yellowish; after beating, it should look fluffy and light. This creaming process incorporates air into the batter and gives the cake its fluffiness.
After creaming the butter, we will add eggs one by one. Make sure that you mix each egg in properly before adding the next one. This avoids curdling and will give a nicer, finer texture to the baked pound cake.
Once eggs are all added in, we will fold in sifted flour and milk/vanilla alternately. Fold till just combined. My personal preference after folding in the flour and liquids – I will beat through the batter with the electric mixer to get rid of any remaining lumps. You should get a fairly smooth batter that resembles mayonnaise texture.
Then, drop dollops of alternating vanilla and chocolate batter into the pan. Lastly, swirl through the batter with a knife for some swirly chocolate pattern in the cake.
>> MORE CAKE RECIPES:
Pound Cake Success Tip #3: Do Not Over-Bake
Baking time stated in the recipe serves as a guidance only. If you are using similar loaf pan as mine, the baking time should be about the same. It would also depends on your oven temperature – so it is always helpful to have an oven thermometer in the oven to ensure it is at the right temperature.
If you are using a smaller but deeper, or bigger loaf pan, you may need to add on baking time, till the skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
P.S.: Read this Top 7 Basic Baking Tips for more info.
How Can I Store The Pound Cake?
Like most butter based cakes, I find the taste and texture of this cake to be better on the next day. I usually keep the cake wrapped in cling wrap, placed in a container in room temperature for up to 2-3 days. Pound cakes should be able to store well till 5 days at normal room temperature, however the cake never last beyond 3 days for me (haha!), so I have not gotten to test it.
Marble Pound Cake
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 2 Loaves (16 x 7 x 7cm) 1x
Description
Buttery loaf of simple pound cake with soft, velvety crumbs.Enjoy a slice for your afternoon break or breakfast, with a cup of strong coffee or tea.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 230g unsalted butter, softened
- 180 g caster sugar
- 4 eggs
- 220 g cake or top flour
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- 4 tbsp whole milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and/or line loaf pans. Sift together cake/top flour, baking powder and salt. Combine milk and vanilla. Set both aside.
- Place softened butter in a medium mixing bowl. Add sugar and beat well with handheld mixer, till light and fluffy.
- Add in eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
- Add in 1/3 of sifted dry ingredients. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in till no visible streaks of flour is left in the batter.
- Add 1/2 of wet ingredients into batter. Fold well. Repeat and alternate with another 1/3 of dry ingredients, followed by remaining wet ingredients and the last 1/3 portion of dry ingredients. Beat the batter briefly with handheld mixer to ensure no lumps remain.
- Scoop about 1/3 of batter into another bowl. Sift cocoa powder in and fold well.
- Drop dollops of alternating vanilla and chocolate batter in loaf pans. Using a knife, cut through the batter and swirl to make patterns. Tap pans on counter top for a few times.
- Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 35 mins. Decrease temperature to 160C and bake for further 10-15 mins, or until a skewer into the middle of the cake comes out clean. The cake is also ready when just some dry crumbs cling onto the skewer.
- Once cake is baked, let cool completely on a cooling rack.
- You can wrap the pound cake in cling wrap to store overnight in a container at room temperature.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Category: Cakes, Dessert, Tea
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: Marble Pound Cake
This is so so so tempting and lovely.
Is it possible to double the recipe to bake it in a 9×5 inch loaf pan?
Please advise baking time and temperature.
Looking forward to your reply.
Jacqui
Thanks Jacqui! I think it should be able to bake well in a bigger loaf pan. I have not tried baking in a bigger loaf pan yet so I am not sure how it would turn out – but I would try to bake at 160C for 30 mins and then 170C (instead of 175C) for 10 mins.
Before the last 10 mins, I would check for browning. If not browned properly on top then I might increase temp to 175C for the last few mins. Insert skewer into cake to see if it is baked well – should not have wet batter or large clumps of crumbs 🙂
By the way this is a traditional pound cake recipe, so it can be a little dense in texture for some. If you like lighter texture for butter cakes, you can consider: https://cherienoms.com/2020/02/lemon-cranberries-yogurt-cake.html or https://cherienoms.com/2018/10/cranberries-apricot-loaf-cake.html
Thank you for sharing this recipe! Honestly I was a little skeptical of pound cakes, but my family love this!
★★★★