Marble Cake With Sour Cream

This easy chocolate marble loaf cake recipe is made with sour cream and dark chocolate, creating a moist, tender crumb and a good chocolate flavour. Some recipes will have you make two separate batters, which is a lot of work. I prefer to make one vanilla sour cream cake batter and flavour half with melted chocolate.

Marble cakes are two-flavoured cakes made from two cake batters that are contrasting and yet complimentary, in both colour and flavour. The classic marble cake is vanilla and chocolate, swirled together to give the cake a marbled effect.

A marble cake can be baked in a loaf cake pan for an easy, convenient marble loaf cake that can be sliced into slabs for snacks during the week. You can also bake marble cakes in bundt pans to make more ornate cakes that can be glazed, drizzled with chocolate ganache, or even frosted.

Jump to:

• Ingredients You Will Need to Make Marble Loaf Cake
• Substitutions and Variations
• How to Make Marble Cake Step-By-Step
• Marble Cake FAQs
• Other Loaf Cakes to Try
• 📖 Recipe

Ingredients You Will Need to Make Marble Loaf Cake

This chocolate and vanilla marble cake recipe is based on an Anna Olson recipe. It's a simple vanilla cake recipe made with sour cream for a more moist, tender crumb.

• butter—I bake with unsalted butter. If using salted butter, please adjust the amount of salt to avoid the cake being too salty
• sugar—I used granulated sugar for this marble cake so that the vanilla portion of the marble cake had the cleanest vanilla flavour, without the interference of molasses notes from brown sugar
• flour—I used bleached all-purpose flour though unbleached will likely work fine
• eggs—I bake with large eggs. Avoid using smaller or larger eggs as this may affect the texture of the cake and how it rises
• vanilla—use pure vanilla extract. If using artificial, you may have to adjust the quantity because the flavour is stronger.
• chocolate—use a dark chocolate that is not too sweet and with a high percent of cocoa solids (around 70 %). Do not use chocolate chips as they don't melt well and they may make the cake too sweet
• sour cream—please use full-fat sour cream (the sour cream I use is 14 % fat) for the best flavour and texture. Marble cakes made with sour cream are a little more moist
• leavening—you will need baking powder for this cake. Please read about baking soda versus baking powder if you are unsure how they differ.
• salt—I bake with Diamond Crystal Fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, please add half the amount or the cookies may be too salty

Please see the recipe card for the complete list of ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions and Variations

• Yogurt—If you want to make this recipe, but you don't have any sour cream, you can still make this marble loaf cake with crème fraîche (if you can find it) or Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. Preferably, go for Greek yogurt with a higher percentage of fat (9 % fat, if not more), though this recipe would also work out with lower fatGreek yogurt. Opt for an unflavoured plain Greek yogurt, as opposed to vanilla yogurt, if possible.
• Vanilla is a key component in a classic marble cake recipe, adding a lot of depth to the vanilla swirl of cake, without which the cake may taste bland or even eggy. If you don't have vanilla, an alternative would be bourbon or rum to replace those musky woodsy notes. You can add a few drops of almond extract to the vanilla batter or peppermint extract to the chocolate batter. You can add chopped nuts or chocolate chips.
• Spices—You can also incorporate sweet spices, cinnamon, for example, would be great in the chocolate batter!
• Chocolate orange marble cake either by adding orange zest
  • at the very beginning of the recipe when you cream together the butter and sugar. In this way, both the chocolate and vanilla cakes would be flavoured with orange OR
  • to only half the vanilla batter. This way, only the vanilla portion of the marble cake will have an orange flavour. So, when you split the vanilla cake batter in two: add melted chocolate to one half of the cake batter, and add orange zest to the other half of the cake batter.

How to Make Marble Cake Step-By-Step

Some people overcomplicate marble cake recipes by making two separate batters and then swirling them together. So they make a chocolate batter and then they make a vanilla batter separately, both from scratch. Then they swirl them together in a cake pan. That's too much work if you ask me!

I prefer to start with one sour cream vanilla cake batter, which you split in two after it's made. At that point, you flavour half the batter with chocolate. Here are the steps to make this easy chocolate marble loaf cake:

Step 1: Place the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water (image 1) and gently heat the chocolate until it is melted and smooth (image 2).

Step 2: While the chocolate is melting and cooling, combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (image 3) and cream them together before adding the eggs one at a time and the vanilla (image 4). Whip the mixture until smooth, creamy and fluffy (image 5).

Note: Sometimes when I add in the last eggs, the mixture will break or curdle. If this happens it means the butter likely hardened into tiny beads because the eggs (or your kitchen) were too cold. If this happens, you can use a hair dryer to heat up the outside of the mixer bowl and partially melt a portion of the mixture, then whip again until creamy and smooth (as in image 5).

Step 3: Whisk the dry ingredients in a separate bowl (image 6) then add them, one third at a time (image 7), alternating with the sour cream (image 8). Remember to always begin and end by adding some dry ingredients for the best results (image 9).

Step 4: Remove half of the vanilla cake batter from the mixer and set it aside in a separate bowl, then add the melted chocolate to the remainder of the batter in the mixer (image 10). Mix until evenly incorporated (image 11), then use dishers or ice cream scoops to dollop the batter in the loaf pan (image 12).

Step 5: Smooth the top of the batter (image 13) and use a palette knife or offset to swirl the two batters together (image 14). Do not overmix the two batters because you will lose the two-toned look of the classic marble cake.

Step 6: Smooth the surface of the loaf again and bake until the edges of the cake pull away from the sides (image 16) and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

For the best marble cake, use sour cream!

I like to add sour cream or other acidic dairy products (buttermilk, yogurt, acidified milk, etc.) to my cakes. Sour cream and other acid sources help to reduce gluten development when you mix the flour into the cake batter, leading to a more tender, moist cake with a softer mouthfeel. This cinnamon chocolate chip bundt cake made with sour cream is a perfect example of that. Sour cream is an acidic dairy product with roughly 14 % fat content, so it adds richness and flavour, but also reduces gluten formation leading to a more tender, soft loaf cake. You can also use cake flour (or a lower protein wheat flour) instead of all-purpose flour for a more tender, lighter crumb. The lower protein content will also contribute less gluten to the cake.

Serving Suggestions

Serve this sour cream marble cake with vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream (or both!).

Want to dress it up? Try a frosting for your marble cake, like this milk chocolate frosting or this chocolate ganache made with sour cream (a half-batch will suffice)!

Marble Cake FAQs

Other Loaf Cakes to Try

I love to make loaf cakes on the weekend to serve during the week for breakfast and snacks. Here are a few others to try:

If you tried this recipe for the best marble cake with sour cream (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

📖 Recipe