Pink Chocolate Marble Cake with Fresh Strawberry Frosting

Pink chocolate marbles classic buttery yellow cake. Topped with fresh strawberry frosting, this fluffy, fun cake recipe is ideal for birthdays. Pink Chocolate Marble Cake with Fresh Strawberry Frosting is great for other celebrations, too...such as making it through Monday!

Adapted from The Southern Cake Book's recipe for Chocolate Marble Cake. 

Ingredients: 

For the cake:

  • 1 cup butter, at room temperature
  • 1¾ cups sugar
  • (1½ cups for the vanilla batter, ¼ cup for the pink chocolate batter)
  • 2 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt (skip the fleur de sels, plain table salt works wonders!)
  • 1 cup half-and-half
  • ¼ cup white chocolate powder
  • 3 tablespoons hot water
  • Rose pink food coloring

For the frosting:

  • 6 tablespoons softened butter
  • 6 tablespoons of finely minced fresh strawberries
  • 2 ½ cups of powdered sugar
Directions: 

For the cake:

Line a 13 x 9 pan with aluminum foil. (You probably already know this trick. But it’s worth mentioning and saves sooooo much time and dishpan hands!) Spray the foil with baking spray.

Preheat the oven to 325 (after 15 minutes of baking, you’ll increase the temperature to 350.)

In the bowl of a kitchen stand mixer, whip together the butter and sugar for 5 minutes. One at a time, add the eggs. Stir in the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Divide the mixture into thirds. Pour the first third of flour into the butter bowl. (Begin and end with the flour mixture.) Beat on low speed. Alternate the flour additions with the half-and-half.

Once the batter is well combined, scoop out 1¼ cups into a separate bowl. Stir in ¼ cup white chocolate powder with 3 tablespoons of hot water and ¼ cup of sugar. Squeeze in a few drops of pink food coloring. Combine well. (For a more chocolaty taste, add melted white chocolate.)

Spread the vanilla batter into the prepared pan. Pour the pink batter over the first layer and swirl with a chopstick or knife.

Bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes. Turn up the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for another 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

For the frosting:

Fluff up the butter with an electric mixer. Add in the strawberries and powdered sugar on low speed (to avoid dry cleaning bills from staining splatters!)