Marble Pound Cake (and more cake pans!)

I try to be good.  I have so many specialty pans and I swear I don't need more.  Then a new catalog arrives and I have to peek.  You have probably already surmised that I have a new cake pan.  Yep, two of them! My poor children.  When they have to move me to a rest home someday (hopefully many years from now!), they will be uncovering cake pans everywhere. I'm sure it will convince them that they were correct in putting their Mama away! 

 So, with a new pan just waiting to be tried out, I went searching for a recipe. This cake is from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. It's not real sweet, has a subtle vanilla and chocolate taste. It makes a great mid-morning snack. And, you have to admit, the new pan makes a pretty cake!

Making a marble cake is just a matter of arranging scoops of the different-flavored batter in the pan and swirling the batter when done.  This combines the batter to make a pretty marbly cake.

 

 

Marble Pound Cake

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
1 3/4 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup buttermilk, room temperature
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Generously butter a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan; set aside. Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Mix in vanilla.  Add flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour.  Set aside 1/3 of the batter.

In a bowl, mix cocoa and 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water with a rubber spatula until smooth.  Add the cocoa mixture to the reserved cake batter; stir until well combined.

Spoon batters into the prepared pan in 2 layers, alternating spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate to simulate a checkerboard.  To create marbling, run a table knife or wooden skewer through the batters in a swirling motion.

Bake, rotating the pan halfway through, until a cake tester comes out clean, about 40 minutes.  Transfer pan to a rack to cool 10 minutes. Turn out cake from pan and cool completely on the rack.

If you, too, have no willpower you can purchase the pans through these vendors.  The wreath pan can be found at Amazon  or Sur la Table.  The loaf pan was purchased at Williams Sonoma.