I made a 15" base tier for a wedding last week, and I baked three different layers, using two different recipes, and they all STILL sank after cooling. The same pan with the same recipe of yellow cake (without the chocolate in it) did fine...so it's not the oven that I can tell...

I have another bride in June who wants the whole cake done in marble (yellow and chocolate), and now I'm feeling like I should suggest to her a layer of yellow and layer of chocolate in each tier instead of hassling with these marble cakes again.

Does anyone have a great wedding-cake-size recipe for marble cake from scratch? I even looked for a box mix but wasn't able to find one...

argh

How are you marbelizing? what are you using? Some recipes call for wet ingredients for the chocolate part such as hershey's syrup and that would effect your baking outcome. I add cocoa to a portion of the yellow cake and I find this works great!

Yep--adding the cocoa to the yellow is the way to go. That way it doesn't affect the sugar to cake batter ratio and cause the "syrup sinking" that can happen with cake mixtures! (In other words--it's the same basic mix/recipe and the cakes aren't fighting with each other for heat/rising room)

Hope this helps!

--Knox---

I use the Duncan Hines marble box mix - and it's really good (very moist). My customers love it. It's pretty much a yellow cake w/ cocoa powder added. If you can't find it or don't want to use a box, I would also suggest adding cocoa powder to your yellow. May need a little extra liquid to offset... Good luck!

Hmm, maybe I'll try the cocoa thing.

Both the recipes I used called for melted and cooled semi or bittersweet chocolate...and it HAD to be sinking from the chocolate, because the plain yellow cakes did fine...

Good idea. I see some experimenting in my next few weeks--I have to get this next cake made and frozen before I leave on vacation; the wedding is 3 days after we get back..!

I had a little bit of trouble the first few times i made a marble cake. DH does have a marble cake mix though.

I use DH box mixes. Equal parts of DH White cake and DH Chocolate Fudge cake. I usually mix and pour in the white cake first . Then Mix up the chocolate and drop spoon fulls of it randomly into the pan. I take a spatula and swirl (pushing the chocolate down and the white up). I have found that the marble i do need to bake a little longer b/c of the different flavors of cakes mixed together, this might be eliminated with the marble cake mix. I also bake my marble cakes at 325 since i bake them longer.

A few other possible concerns:
-Is your oven large enough for a 15" pan? is there at least 2 inches all the way around for the air to circulate?
-Is your oven temp correct?
-What temperature did you bake it at?
-Did you use a heating core in the middle? it is a fairly large cake.

Hope the next one goes better, practice makes perfect.

Leily

A few weeks ago I had a request for a marble cake, and couldn't find one that I liked. So, since I already had a chocolate recipe and a yellow recipe that I trusted, I just used those. When you go to put it in the pan, just use equal amounts of each, and then swirl it. It worked out great! I was concerned about the baking times, but I just watched it closely, and had no problems. In a way it stinks because you have to make two seperate batches, but it was easier than trying out a new recipe that fails! HTH!

I always use equal parts of DH yellow and devil's food and marble them together. I usually put the yellow in the pan first, and then I drop spatula-fuls of devil's food on top of the yellow. Then, I use a spatula to swirl the two together. I've never had any problems with baking them. They always seem to bake in the same amount of time as my single flavor cakes. Good luck!!