I love all those beautiful marbled rainbow cakes that are all over Pinterest, but I had never tried making one before. When I decided to try one, I wanted to put my own little twist on the idea, so I skipped the added food coloring altogether, opting instead for a natural variation.
Since this cake is marbled with completelynatural food-based colors (from beets and turmeric), the finished result is a lot more subtle than the bright rainbow cakes. It’s more of a natural, “grown up” twist, if you will.
I’m all about saving time with “halfway homemade” recipes. Let’s save ourselves some trouble and use a boxed mix, okay? The rectangular shape of this one is an elegant change from the standard round cakes, and fresh fruit and candy pearls finish off the whole look.
Natural Marble Cake Recipe
- 1 box of white cake mix
- 1 Tbsp. turmeric powder
- ½ c. beet juice, leftover from roasting or obtained by blending a beet
- Vanilla frosting
- Fresh cherries
- Candy pearls
- In a small saucepan, boil the beet juice until the amount of liquid is reduced by about 75%. This will concentrate the color without having to add a lot of liquid to the batter later. Set it aside to cool.
- Mix up cake batter according to the directions on the box. Pour half into one bowl, and split the remainder between two smaller bowls.
- Add about a tablespoon of turmeric powder to one of the smaller bowls, mixing thoroughly until the yellow color is evenly distributed throughout the batter.
- To the second small bowl, add the beet juice concentrate about a tablespoon at a time, stirring to check the color periodically. Some of the color will bake off, so it should be very, very bright at this point.
- Butter and flour the bottom and sides of two loaf pans.
- Spoon enough uncolored batter into each loaf pan to just about cover the bottom.
- On top of the plain batter, spoon yellow batter in one pan and pink batter into another.
- Continue to top those with big spoonfuls of alternating plain and colored batter layers. If this is confusing, just take a look at the pictures to see what this looks like.
- Bake the cakes according to the instructions on the box, and do not overcook. The longer you cook them, the less vibrant the color will be.
- After the cakes have cooled, frost the top of the first one, and then place the second cake on top of that.
- Pile a heap of frosting on top of the second cake, spreading it around with a spoon so that it just starts to fall over the sides of the cake. Don’t worry about trying to cover the sides. This is more “freeform” cake.
- Pile fresh ripe cherries in a loose line down the center of the cake, and randomly place cut, pitted cherries around the edges and in gaps.
- Pour candy pearls into the spaces between and around the cherries.
- Refrigerate the cake until you’re ready to slice and serve it.
Yes, please!!
When can I come over for cake?
As soon as I make a new one since we basically inhaled this guy! ;D
This is going to be on the “must make list” pronto!
Yum! I love the cherries on top. They just make it look that much more delicious and pretty!
This looks so delicious! I love the flavors that you used! This will be a great thing to bring to our next dinner party!
Paige
http://thehappyflammily.com