Chocolate Marble Loaf Cake

This wonderful moist Chocolate Marble Loaf Cake (Pound cake) is the perfect elegant yet easy teacake to serve for breakfast, or as a dessert! My "Better than Starbucks Marble cake" consists of a fluffy and delicious swirl of Vanilla and Chocolate cake covered with a 3 ingredients crunchy chocolate hazelnut glaze!

Making this Marble cake loaf is super easy, and my step by step tutorial will take you through all the necessary information and tips you must know to succeed

Jump to:

• 📖 What is Marble cake
• 🌟 Why this is the best recipe
• 📝 Ingredient notes
• 👩‍🍳 How to make this recipe
• 🥣 Equipment notes
• 🎓 Expert tips
• ❓Recipe FAQs
• 🍰 Other Loaf cake recipes
• Chocolate Marble Loaf Cake

📖 What is Marble cake

A marble cake is a type of cake with a streaked or mottled appearance (like a marble) achieved by gently mixing the light and dark cake batter together. It can be a mixture of vanilla and chocolate cake, or any other distinctive colors eg. matcha with vanilla batter cake, strawberry with chocolate cake batter etc.

My Marble cake recipe can be made in a Loaf tin, or in a classic Cake tin or you can even turn it into a Bundt cake, whatever you fancy!

While making Marble cake the key is to mix the two different cake batters just enough to achieve the marble effect, but not too much, which way one would blend into the other. To make your life easier, my Marble Pound cake recipe ingredients provide a relatively thick cake batter so the two colors can be comfortably mixed without blending them together fully.

🌟 Why this is the best recipe

1. It is extremely easy – You won´t need any fancy ingredients to make Marble cake. The recipe comes together really easily, a totally doable from scratch. Both the mixing process, as well as the baking process are very simple, even for beginners
2. It is super quick – I do not overcomplicate anything in this recipe! My Marble Loaf cake recipe is not just easy, but quick as well, all you need to do is mix the ingredients, bake and enjoy. The recipe is the perfect choice if you want something quick and impressive that is literally ready in about 1-2 hours, most of it is actually waiting
3. It is super delicious – I never compromise on taste! This cake is super moist, I am mean look at this crumb, it is crazy moist! Vanilla and chocolate flavors perfectly bond together in the perfect velvety crumb, while the chocolate glaze with hazelnut is bringing some crunchiness. There is a good reason why I call it "Better than Starbucks Marble loaf cake"
4. No special equipment is needed – All you need is a Loaf tin that you probably already have at home and you are good to go! However, if you do not own a loaf tin, this cake can be made in any cake tin
5. It is super versatile – The Marble loaf recipe can be made using different spices eg. Orange zest can be a great idea to spice up your Loaf cake, I can almost smell it as I am writing about it! Or, add some good quality chocolate chips and turn this into a Chocolate chips Marble cake! Feel free to experiment!

📝 Ingredient notes

For the Marble cake batter

1. Butter: Use always unsalted butter as you want to be in control of the quantity of the salt. I am using 82% fat content butter in all my recipes. In this Marble Loaf cake recipe, the butter needs to be soft, at room temperature to be able to properly cream it with the sugar. The correct temperature of the butter is actually very important when it comes to emulsifying the ingredients, so make sure it is not cold, and also avoid last-minute microwaving
2. Sugar: Granulated sugar works fine in this recipe. If you want to learn about the different types of sugar and how to use them in baking, please read my sugar guide
3. Greek/ Turkish style yogurt: Thick, full-fat Greek or Turkish style yogurt will make the texture of the Marble Pound cake super moist and light. Again, very important that you bring the yogurt to room temperature as cold yogurt won´t properly mix in with the rest of the ingredients
4. Egg: Room temperature as always so the ingredients can perfectly emulsify
5. Flour: I am using pasty flour in this Marble loaf cake recipe, but all-purpose flour works too, they are so-called “soft flour” which are low on protein resulting in a delicate, tender cake texture. If you want to be a Pro when it comes to deciding what type of flour to use in your baking, please read my flour guide
6. Baking powder: Makes the Marble cake tender and helps the rise
7. Salt: We always need at least a large pinch of salt in any cake batter to balance the flavors
8. Cocoa powder: Generally always use unsweetened cocoa powder in baking. I am using a so-called "Dutched processed" cocoa powder that is lower in acidity and has a lovely dark color. The cocoa powder is used for the chocolate batter part of the Marble cake recipe, it provides a super delicious chocolate taste

🛒 You’ll find detailed measurements for all Ingredients in the printable version of the Recipe Card at the bottom of this post

For the glaze

1. Chocolate: This Marble cake loaf is glazed with a super easy chocolate glaze. Use semi-sweet chocolate, the best quality you can access that does not size during melting and leave a beautiful shine. The one I am using is  Callebaut Dark Chocolate (callets). In general, avoid cheap "baking chocolates" with low cocoa butter content whenever you bake
2. Oil: vegetable oil works well here
3. Hazelnut: Taking a few minutes to toast hazelnuts make the flavor to a whole new level. After that, pulse blend it or chop it by hand using a sharp knife. Alternatively, purchase roasted chopped hazelnut, or you can skip the hazelnut

🛒 You’ll find detailed measurements for all Ingredients in the printable version of the Recipe Card at the bottom of this post

👩‍🍳 How to make this recipe

1. How to make super moist Marble Loaf cake

The mixing process of this super moist Marble Loaf recipe is easy and quick. The secret behind making it is using 1. the right, high-quality ingredients 2. at the right temperature (everything room temp) 3. applying the right mixing technique!

Let´s see step by step:

1. Prepare your Loaf pan. Make sure you either use place parchment paper inside the tin or butter and flour it properly. The quantity stated in the recipe makes up a loaf tin that is 9x19cm / 3,5x7,5 inches
2. Preheat oven to 175 C / 347 F with no fan. Use a Digital oven thermometer so you are aware of the real oven temp
3. Ingredients must be all measured with a Digital scale
4. Eggs and all other ingredients (yogurt, butter,etc. ) must be at room temperature
5. In a bowl whip sugar with room temperature, soft butter with an Electric hand mixer (or stand mixer) for a few minutes until fluffy
6. Whisk egg in a separate bowl then slowly mix in while your Electric hand mixer is on. Important that your egg is at room temperature and that you mix in the egg slowly, so it the cake batter won´t break
7. Add yogurt into the mixture, as well as vanilla
8. Sift the dry ingredients for the vanilla part together (flour, baking powder, salt)
9. Sift the dry ingredients for the chocolate part together into a different bowl (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt)
10. Divide the wet ingredients into two, a Digital scale is super handy
11. Dry ingredients must be folded in by hand (using Rubber spatula). Do not use a mixer at this point
12. Prepare the vanilla cake batter by gently folding the flour, baking powder, salt mixture into one of the wet ingredients. Fill a piping bag with your vanilla cake batter and set it aside
13. Prepare the chocolate batter by gently folding the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt mixture into the other wet ingredients. Fill a piping bag with your chocolate cake batter
14. Pipe the cake batters into your prepared Loaf tin by alternating between the vanilla and chocolate cake batter
15. To create the marble effect, gently mix the two batters together in the follow ingway: grab a knife and make some zigzag movements in the pan. Make sure that you do not over mix the cake batters, or they might melt together

💡 Top Tip: On top of the cake apply a very thin butter line (with the help of a pastry bag)– this will help the Loaf cake to open up nicely and evenly instead of breaking in a random way

2. How to bake

First of all never bake any cake without properly pre-heating your oven first, so start with that before even preparing the cake batter. This Marble Loaf cake will be baked at 175 C / 347 F without fan. Preheat the oven +20C / 68F as the home ovens temperature drop when you open the door. Always use Digital oven thermometer to avoid over baked crumbly or under-baked cakes.

Each oven is different so you might need to adjust the time slightly but in my oven I bake the Marble Pound cake for 45 minutes. It is ready when the cake has a nice rise and when toothpick inserted, it comes out clean. Make sure that the middle part is not raw when doing the toothpick test.

Towards the end of the baking time, make the syrup. Boil water and sugar until slightly thickens and reaches syrup consistency. This will take about 3-5 minutes. Once syrup is ready, pour it over the ready baked hot cake and let it sink for a few minutes. You might want to pour the syrup in 2-3 stages depending on how quickly it sinks in.

After syrup sank in and cake slightly cools, remove it from the pan. Very important that you only start glazing the Marble Loaf once it is nicely chilled.

💡 Top Tip: You can flavor the Marble loaf cake easily by flavoring the syrup while boiling. Cinnamon stick, lemon zest, orange zest can be wonderful add-ins to your syrup and additional flavor to your cake

3. How to glaze

Glazing is totally optional but really takes this Chocolate Marble Pound cake to the next level both in terms of texture (extra crunchiness), also the flavor (chocolate & hazelnut)!

1. Place Callebaut Dark Chocolate (callets) or your chosen finely chopped high-quality chocolate into a bowl, melt in the microwave stirring every 30 seconds
2. When chocolate is melted (temp reached about 45C-50C / 113F - 122F in case of dark chocolate) mix in oil, heat the mixture up again to 45C / 113F then cool it down to about 25C / 77F by stirring
3. Finally, mix in roasted chopped hazelnut

Glazing this Marble Pound cake is all about finding the right (temperature) moment to pour the chocolate glaze over the cake. Make sure that your cake is cold (5C / 41F fridge temp) so the glaze can quickly set instead of running it on the side. The glaze must be not too thin, neither not too thick, about 25C / 77F is the ideal temperature.

Once you are happy with the consistency of the glaze and it is not too runny, but still runny enough to glaze the cake, pour glazing over cold Marble Loaf cake. If the temperature was right, the glazing should be set in less than a minute.

💡 Top Tip: By heating and cooling the chocolate effectively you temper it. I am using my favorite  Infrared thermometer gun to measure chocolate temperature

🥣 Equipment notes

First and foremost make sure you measure the ingredients with the help of a Digital scale. Cup measurement is highly inaccurate and can cause all sorts of baking disappointments.

For mixing egg and sugar I suggest using an Electric hand mixer then switch to a Rubber spatula when incorporating the dry ingredients.

For baking the Marble Pound cake you will need a Loaf pan, the quantity stated in the recipe makes a loaf tin that is 9x19cm / 3,5x7,5 inches. Make sure you apply appropriate cake pan preparation as you can see on my picture below.

Finally, for the chocolate glaze, it is rather important that you are aware of the temperatures. I own a wonderful pro baking equipment: Infrared thermometer gun that I absolutely love! It is the most accurate and convenient way to check temperature whether I am making curd, cream, or tempering chocolate! You can also measure temp with other kinds of thermometers, choose according to your preference.

🎓 Expert tips

• While making the cake, it is critical that all ingredients are at room temperature for proper emulsification
• Do not over bake your sponge as that would result in a dry texture
• When making the marble effect, try not to overmix the cake batter
• An inexpensive Rubber spatula is super useful whenever "fold" is mentioned in the recipe. With the help of your spatula, you will be able to fold the cream gently without breaking it
• When glazing cakes, loaf cakes, donuts, etc. temperature again is very important. The cake should be chilled and the glaze should be at a certain temperature (about 25C / 77F is the ideal temperature) to ensure that the glaze will set on the cake just fine
• Feel free to experiment with flavor pairings eg. use citrus zest in the syrup, or replace 25% of the flour with nut flour etc.

If you are interested in other amazing loaf cakes you can try this perfect cranberry nut bread recipe from Emilie.

❓Recipe FAQs

🍰 Other Loaf cake recipes