Marbled Chocolate Pound Cake

Marbled Chocolate Pound Cake, rich with sour cream, is a classic for a reason. Simple and delicious, everyone will love this cake. Affiliate links have been used to link to items I am discussing.

While you are reading this, with any luck I will be lying on the couch recovering, watching something light and trashy like Mistresses, while Alex makes dinner and Sammy fans me with a palm frond.

A girl can dream, right?

In the meantime, considerate person that I am, I have backlogged some posts to share with you while I am recuperating. Now, I know I missed Bundt Bakers this past month (go check out all the tropical beauties!) but at least I have a bundt for you. I whipped this up one evening, just a spur of the moment decision. And it came together that easily too! I had never made a marbled pound cake before, so I was really impressed by how nicely it came together. And the family loved it–it disappeared almost instantly.

I found the recipe for this cake in The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert Cookbook: 100 Delicious Heritage Recipes from the Farm and Garden. It is full of gorgeous photos and seasonally inspired recipes, and I am sure this cake will be the first of many recipes that I make from it.

One note about the liquor I used: I feel confident that your cake will turn out fantastically if you use bourbon, as the cookbook calls for. But I happened to have some Crave Chocolate Chili Liquor sample bottles, so that is what I used. Use whatever sounds good to you!

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Marbled Chocolate and Vanilla Pound Cake

Closely adapted from The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert Cookbook

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Cakes

Author: TheSpicedLife

Ingredients

• 2 cups (252 g) AP flour
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 8 T (110 g, 1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 heaping t ground vanilla beans (use extract as sub if necessary)
• 3/4 cup full fat sour cream
• 4 oz semisweet chocolate, at least 60% cacao, melted
• 2 T liquor of choice (original recipe calls for bourbon, I used Chocolate Chili Crave)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 F. Grase and flour a 9 inch (10 cup) bundt pan. Set aside.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream the butter until creamy. Add the sugar in 4 additions, beating until fluffy. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Beat in the ground vanilla beans.
5. Slowly mix in the flour mixture and sour cream in 3 and 2 additions respectively, alternating, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. When it is mixed in, remove 1 1/2 cups of the batter into a medium sized bowl.
6. Mix the liquor into the melted chocolate, and then mix that into the 1 1/2 cups of batter.
7. Scrape the vanilla batter into the prepared bundt pan. Smooth the top so that it is even.
8. Dollop the chocolate batter by spoonfuls on top of the vanilla batter. Make sure it is fairly even--I like to keep it from the edges also if possible so that the chocolate center is a surprise.
9. Once dolloped, use a butter knife or chopstick to swirl the batters together.
10. Bake for 50-60 minutes, until the cake has risen, is browned, and has started to pull away from the sides of the pan. Insert a cake tester into the center of the cake and make sure it comes out clean or with only a few crumbs attached.
11. Remove the cake from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes on a cooling rack in the pan. Then invert the cake onto a cooling rack and let it finish cooling completely.