Marble Cake

This marble cake may look fancy, but its flavor is pure old-fashioned goodness.

With swirls of tender vanilla and fudgy chocolate cake, this marble looks fancy but tastes like pure old-fashioned goodness, and it appeals to kids and grown-ups alike. It’s essentially a marbled version of this award-winning Kentucky Butter Cake. Surprisingly, you don’t need two completely different batters to make marble cake.

You simply take a third of the vanilla batter and mix it with melted chocolate and cocoa powder and voilà — that’s your chocolate batter! Be careful not to over-marble the batters or the flavors will get muddled; a few swirls around the pan with a knife will do the trick.

Ingredients:

FOR THE CAKE

• 1/2 cup natural cocoa powder, such as Hershey's
• 2-1/2 cups sugar, divided
• 1/2 cup water
• 4 oz semi-sweet chocolate, best quality such as Ghirardelli, broken into 1-in pieces
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 4 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

FOR THE GLAZE

• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract