Enhanced Marble Cake

Marble cake made with cake mix, flour, sugar and other ingredients to make it more like scratch.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Cake Mix, Marble Cake

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 30

Total Time 40

Servings

Author Cookie Madness

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.

Notes

For the frosting, make sure all ingredients are at room temperature and not cool at all. If ingredients are too cool, some of the chocolate may re-solidify giving you little chunks of chocolate in the frosting. It's happened to me a couple of times. People actually like the little chunks, but I don't think the frosting looks as nice when that happens.