I apologize for the lack of posts this past Saturday, I’ve been down in San Francisco on a business trip all week. No matter. For your patience, I present to you one of the most beautiful cakes I’ve ever made:

 

 

This, my friends, is a marble pinwheel cake. I’ve been coveting a bundt pan ever since I saw Baker Royale’s beautiful zebra bundt cake and was dying to try out the recipe. But I was appalled to find that a traditional bundt pan cost nearly $30 on Amazon! Screw that. Disheartened, I was about to click away when this beautiful pinwheel bundt pan caught my eye. It was $10 cheaper than the traditional bundt pan, and I was sure that its epic mold would produce a rather majestic cake:

 

 

I was right. Isn’t it beautiful?

But what really takes this cake to the next level is that it is a marble cake. Can’t decide between chocolate and vanilla? No need! You get the best of both worlds in this sucker:

 

 

Now here comes the hard part — despite the lovely picture above, this cake is a little bit of a failure. I was trying to recreate Baker Royale’s recipe after all — and this cake is supposed to look like a zebra. In the picture above, you can clearly see that it looks just like plain old marble cake — the chocolate stripes are way too thick! Ugh. I’m not sure where I went wrong. My batter was simply too thick and didn’t spread the way it hers did.
 
Sigh.
 
Aside from not looking like a zebra, the cake itself tasted fantastic. I offered some to my coworker, explaining that it was some sort of pound cake. After she took a bite, she quickly helped herself to more, explaining that she had always thought pound cake was kind of gross and bleh and not very good — but this was. It might actually have been to my advantage that the cake had thick chocolate stripes. The chocolate stripes were surprisingly chocolatey, and definitely complemented the vanilla cake by highlighting its creaminess and strong vanilla flavor.  I guess you can’t really go wrong with that, even though it doesn’t quite look like a zebra.

 




 
 

Get the Recipe: Marble Pinwheel Cake

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Ingredients

  • 3 cups cake flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided into 1/2 cup and 2 cup portions
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 6 tablespoons water, at room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 5 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1/2 cup whole milk
  • powdered sugar, for dusting

Equipment

  • 1x pinwheel bundt pan, buttered liberally and sprayed with cooking spray

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 350 (F).
  • In a medium bowl, whisk together 3 cups cake flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Set aside.
  • In a separate medium bowl, combine 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, and 6 tablespoons water. Whisk until mixture is smooth. Set aside.
  • Place 1 1/2 cups melted butter and 2 cups sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high until the mixture is blended, about 1 minute. Add in 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract and continue beating until combined. Add 5 eggs, one at a time, beating until each egg has just been incorporated. Once all the eggs are added, beat mixture until it becomes light and fluffy — it will resemble pancake batter, but slightly thinner.
  • Turn mixer down to its lowest speed and add the flour mixture (from the first step) in three additions, alternating with 1/2 cup whole milk in two additions and mixing just until blended.
  • Add 2 cups of batter (from the fourth step) to the cocoa mixture and stir until blended.
  • Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, pour two scoops of vanilla batter into the pan. Now alternate and pour one scoop of chocolate batter on top of the vanilla mixture. Continue to alternate between vanilla and chocolate layers until the bundt pan is filled.
  • Bake for 50 – 60 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool cake in the pan on a cooling rack for 15 minutes, before turning out to cool completely.

Notes

Adapted from Baker’s Royale
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