One of my favorite scratch marble cakes is this Triple Layer Mocha Marble Cake, but last week I had to pull something together quickly for a Girl Scout pot luck and felt like using cake mix. Since I'd had good luck with the enhanced Orangesicle Cake, I decided to push that luck a bit by using a different flavor mix, different proportions of flour, sugar, eggs and milk, and adding cocoa and sour cream to make a cake mix marble cake.
Enhanced Marble Cake is just a combination of cake mix and some scratch ingredients, but unlike scratch cake where you have to be fairly careful with your mixing methods, with this recipe you just dump everything in the bowl. For the cake mix, I used a 15.25 oz box of Pillsbury Moist Supreme Classic Yellow, but feel free to substitute your favorite brand of 15.25 oz vanilla, butter or yellow cake mix. Betty Crocker Golden Vanilla is particularly good. For the icing, I used my favorite scratch recipe.
Six Inch Enhanced Cake Mix Marble Cake
I recently tested the recipe using half a box of Duncan Hines Butter Golden flavor and making the cake as a six inch round two layer. It worked perfectly! Just weigh out half a box (about 215 grams) and add half of all the other ingredients. For the frosting, you'll want to make the full batch or ⅔ of it rather than half.
Recipe
Enhanced Marble Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 15.25 oz box yellow cake mix Pillsbury Moist Supreme Classic or Betty Crocker Moist Yellow both work, so does DH.
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 4 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 4 tablespoons melted butter
- ¼ cup whole milk
- 1 cup water
- ⅔ cup 3 oz all-purpose flour or ¾ cup (3 oz) cake flour
- 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons sour cream, full fat, not light
Chocolate Frosting
- 1 ½ oz unsweetened chocolate chopped
- 1 ½ oz semisweet chocolate chopped
- 1 ½ sticks unsalted or salted butter, softened
- 3 tablespoons unsweetened natural cocoa powder
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 3 tablespoons room temperature whole milk plus more if needed
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- Pinch or two of salt if using unsalted butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray two 9 inch round cake pans with sides that are at least 2 inches high, with flour-added baking spray.
- Combine cake mix, sugar, salt, eggs, vanilla, oil, butter, milk and water in a large bowl DO NOT ADD THE FLOUR YET. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth, scraping sides of bowl well. After you've beaten the batter, THEN add the flour and stir until mixed. The point is not to overbeat the flour :).
- In a small mixing bowl, mix together cocoa powder and sour cream. Stir in 1 cup of the vanilla batter. This is tricky because the chocolate mixture gets lumpy. You may want to start with a couple of tablespoons of vanilla batter and stir until smooth, then gradually add about a cup.
- Divide vanilla batter evenly among pans. Drop globs of chocolate batter over the vanilla batter. Swirl through. For deeper looking marbles, drag back of a spoon through vanilla batter and let the chocolate batter sink down a bit.
- Bake for 30 minutes on center rack or until cakes test done. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes, then carefully invert. Let cool completely.
- To make the frosting, melt both chocolates in microwave or double boiler and set aside to cool for about 30 minutes. Beat the butter until creamy. Stir in the cocoa power, about a cup of the powdered sugar, and the slightly cooled (it can be a little warm) melted chocolate. Scrape sides of bowl and beat well. Add remaining powdered sugar, then add milk, vanilla and salt, beating and scraping until you get the consistency you like.
Anna says
Hi Kim, I used the extra flour to balance the other ingredients. I've never tested this with gluten-free cake mix, but I suppose you could give it a try and use gluten-free flour. This is one I need to make again a few times. It was great when I made it, but it's not a recipe I make all the time.
You might want to try just using gluten-free chocolate and gluten-free yellow cake mix and following the directions/ingredient amounts on each box, then just marble the two together.
Kim says
This sounds delicious! I want to make it for my dear husband’s birthday. Is the extra flour for extra gluten for the bounce-effect? I need to make it gluten-free so that’s where my question is from,
Zola Abraham says
I really really really love Marble cake so much! It's my favourite cake ever! I want this cake for my Birthday and I really don't know how to make homemade frosting.
Paula B. says
This looks amazing especially with the homemade frosting. I haven't had a marble cake in years (best of both worlds, yes?). I will definitely have to make this for a birthday celebration that is coming up at the end of the week.
Jan Harris says
Sue: I'm hoping your Mom is getting better. Anna, how did this cake go over at the pot luck? My Mom used to make marble cakes for me on my birthday.
Anna says
Sue, I'm sorry your mom is sick. That's sweet that she remembered the pumpkin muffins, and I do hope she is able to start eating again soon.
Sue says
I thought I posted a comment to this yesterday. It looks great. I love how you're able to bring new to me things to your blog.
My Mom has been in the hospital for most of the week now. She has no appetite and when we were pressing her for anything she'd like she mentioned the chocolate pumpkin muffins that I made for her a few years ago. I got the recipe from you so thank you. I doubt she'll eat them but I'll make them anyway. Even a couple of bites would be a good thing.