Sashas Marble Birthday Cake Food

MOIST AND FLUFFY MARBLE CAKE RECIPE

Steps:

• Prepare three 8″x2″ cake pans with cake goop or another preferred pan spray. Preheat your oven to 335ºF (168ºC).
• Bring your butter, milk, and eggs to room temperature. It's really important when making a cake for the ingredients to all be slightly warm so they create an emulsion.
• Heat the water until it's simmering and then combine it with your cocoa powder.
• Stir it until the cocoa powder is moistened. It will look lumpy, but that is normal.
• Set it aside and let it cool while you prepare the cake batter.
• In a separate container, combine 3/4 cup of the milk and the oil together and set it aside.
• In a separate container, combine the remaining milk, eggs, vanilla, and almond extract together. Whisk it to break up the eggs, and then set it aside.
• In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt with the paddle attachment. Mix for 10 seconds to combine everything.
• Add your softened butter to the flour mixture and mix on low until the mixture resembles coarse sand (this takes about 30 seconds). This style of mixing is called the reverse creaming method, and it will result in a very velvety, moist cake. A lot of my other cake recipes like brown butter cake and white velvet buttermilk cake use this method.
• Add in your milk/oil mixture and mix it on low until the dry ingredients are moistened.
• Increase the speed to medium (setting 2 on my Bosch Mixer, setting 4 on a KitchenAid) and let it mix for 2 minutes to develop the cake's structure. If you don't let your cake mix on this step, your cake could collapse.
• Scrape your bowl and then reduce the speed to low.
• Add in your egg mixture in three batches, letting the batter mix for 15 seconds between additions.
• Scrape down the sides again to make sure everything has incorporated.
• Take out 1/3 of your batter and combine it with the cooled chocolate mixture and fold it gently until it's combined.
• Layer your batter into your pans, starting with vanilla, then chocolate, and ending with vanilla.
• Use a butter knife to swirl them together gently. Do not over-mix or your cake will not have a marbled interior.
• Bake the cakes for 35-40 minutes at 335ºF (168ºC) or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out cleanly (but the cake has not begun to shrink yet from the sides of the pan). IMMEDIATELY TAP THE PAN FIRMLY on the countertop once to release the steam from the cake. This stops the cake from shrinking.
• Let the cakes cool for 10 minutes inside of the pan before flipping them out. The cake will shrink a bit and that is normal.
• Flip the cake onto a cooling rack and let it cool completely. I chill my cakes before handling them, or you can wrap them in plastic wrap and freeze them to trap moisture in the cake.
• Thaw the cake on the countertop while it's still wrapped before frosting.
• Place your chocolate into a heatproof bowl.
• Heat your cream until it just begins to simmer. Do not boil it or your ganache will be grainy.
• Pour the hot cream over your chocolate.
• Let it sit for 5 minutes.
• Add in your vanilla and salt to the chocolate mixture and whisk it until it's smooth and creamy.
• Pour your ganache into a shallow pan and let it cool to peanut butter consistency. Mine takes about 20 minutes to thicken up.
• Frost your cake with the ganache and then place it into the fridge for 20 minutes. This cake also pairs well with easy buttercream or chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream.
• Dust it with cocoa powder using a soft (new) makeup brush to make the velvet texture.
• Heat the cream until it's just steaming, and then pour it over chocolate.
• Let it sit for 5 minutes.
• Whisk it until it's smooth.
• Let it cool until it's slightly warm to the touch before piping it onto your CHILLED cake.

MARBLE BUNDT CAKE

Steps:

• Heat the oven to 350°F. Coat the inside of a Bundt pan with nonstick spray, or butter and flour every nook and cranny well. Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl between additions. Beat in the vanilla and sour cream until smooth, then add the milk. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over batter, and mix until thoroughly combined. Add 2 cups of the flour to the batter, and mix until just combined.
• Scoop half of the batter-you can eyeball it-into a separate bowl, and stir the melted white chocolate into it until fully combined; then stir in 1/3 cup flour.
• Stir the cocoa powder and melted dark chocolate into the other half of batter.
• Drop or dot large spoonfuls of the white chocolate batter into the bottom of your prepared cake pan. Drop or dot large spoonfuls of the dark chocolate batter over that, checkerboarding it a little. Continue until all the batter is used. Use a skewer to marble the batters together in figure-8 motions.
• Bake the cake until a toothpick or skewer inserted into the center comes out batter-free, 40 to 50 minutes.
• Let cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack, then invert onto a cake plate.
• To finish:
• Heat the cream and chocolate together, and stir until just melted. Spoon over the fully cooled cake, and use the back of a spoon to nudge the drippings down in places. Refrigerate cake to set the chocolate coating; leftovers keep best in the fridge as well.