Vegan Marble Cake

Name: Vegan Marble Cake
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 65 min
Total time: 85 min
Ingredients: 30 g (3 Tbsp) cocoa powder; 4 Tbsp boiling water; 120 g silken tofu* (excess liquid drained off); 200 ml (½ + ⅓ cup) unsweetened non dairy milk (soy is best); 1 Tbsp vanilla extract; 1 ½ tsp cider or white white vinegar (or lemon juice); 240 g (2 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour; 25 g (2 ½ Tbsp) cornflour (cornstarch)**; 1 ½ tsp baking powder; ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda); ½ tsp salt; 275 g (1 ⅓ cups) caster (superfine) sugar; 120 g (½ cup) vegan block butter (melted); 45 ml (3 Tbsp) neutral oil (sunflower/vegetable/canola/mild olive)

Published: Jun 5, 2020 · Modified: Mar 22, 2021

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Vegan marble cake - this vegan chocolate and vanilla pound cake is moist, soft and very moreish! It makes a great snack or indulgent breakfast and just look at those swirls! Eggless and dairy-free.

This vegan marble cake is quite a looker with it's beautiful chocolate and vanilla swirls! But more importantly it tastes great too!

Marble cake is an absolute childhood classic; it consists of a pound cake style cake in two distinctly coloured batters that are swirled together, most often baked in a loaf tin.

Chocolate and vanilla is the most common variety, though chocolate orange is also popular, as well as various more garishly coloured ones.

My vegan marble cake uses one batter to make both the vanilla and chocolate portions and is very easy to make.

Because marble cake is mixed a bit more than regular cake - to mix the cocoa into the chocolate batter and to create the swirls, I decided to make this cake using the reverse creaming method to prevent it from becoming tough due to overmixing.

It may sound complicated, but the reverse creaming method is very simple; it just means that you mix the flour with the fat first and then add the wet ingredients.

Coating the flour with fat helps to stop the gluten from developing when it is mixed, making for a more soft and tender cake crumb.

This recipe is a mashup between my vegan lemon pound cake recipe and this marble cake recipe by the very talented Izy Hossack, who's idea it was to use the reverse creaming method.

What Ingredients Do I Need?:

Silken tofu: When I was working on my vegan lemon pound cake recipe, I found that (after a lot of testing!) silken tofu was the best egg replacer for pound cake so I used it again here.

I don't use it in many cake recipes, but for dense, moist cakes like pound cake it is absolutely the best for replicating the right texture - dense, moist, soft and tender.

Milk: Unsweetened soy milk is the best for baking as it has the highest protein content but any non-dairy milk will work.

Vinegar: A bit of vinegar helps with the rise. I use either cider vinegar or white wine vinegar but lemon juice will also work.

Vanilla extract: A generous amount of vanilla extract gives this simple cake plenty of flavour. Be sure to use extract rather than essence for the best flavour.

Cornflour (cornstarch): A bit of cornflour helps to give the cake a nice soft texture. If you don't have any you can just swap it for more plain flour. And if you happen to have any cake flour then you can omit the cornflour and plain flour and use all cake flour instead.

Plain flour: I use a blend of plain flour and the above cornflour for a good texture. If you have cake flour then you can just use that in place of both flours.

Cocoa powder: I use Dutch processed cocoa powder. For UK readers, that's just regular supermarket cocoa powder; pretty much all cocoa powder in the UK is Dutch processed.

Baking powder and bicarbonate of soda (baking soda): Obviously necessary if you want your cake to rise!

Vegan block butter: For the best textured cake it is important to use a vegan block butter/margarine to make this cake – the kind that comes in a foil wrapped block, NOT the spreadable kind in a tub which has too high a water content for baking.

I use Naturli Vegan Block but Stork, Vitalite or Tormor blocks are also fine (not the tub versions). Spreadable will work in a pinch but I really do recommend block if possible.

Neutral oil: adding a bit of oil as well as the butter makes for a moist, soft cake. I use sunflower but vegetable, canola or mild olive oil would all be fine.

Caster sugar: I like to use golden caster sugar for a bit of extra flavour but white is fine too. If you only have granulated sugar then you can give it a quick blitz in a blender to make your own caster sugar.

How To Make Vegan Marble Cake:

(For ingredients and full instructions see the recipe card below)

Place the cocoa powder in a large bowl and whisk in the boiling water to make a smooth paste. Set aside.

Place the silken tofu, milk, vanilla extract and vinegar in a blender and blitz until smooth. (I just put it all in a large jug and use a stick blender).

Place the plain flour, cornflour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and sugar in a large bowl and whisk to combine.

Add the melted butter and oil to the dry ingredients and stir until no dry patches remain. Adding the fat to the flour before adding the wet ingredients helps to make the cake more soft and tender.

Gradually whisk the wet ingredients into the dry to form a smooth batter.

Measure 500g of the batter (just under half) into the cocoa mixture and stir until smooth.

Spoon ⅓ of one of the colours into the prepared tin. Spoon ⅓ of the other colour on top (it doesn't have to be neat). Repeat this two more times so you end up with three layers of each colour.

Drag a skewer or knife through the batter a couple of times to swirl the colours together. Don't go mad here or you will just end up mixing them together rather than swirling; a couple of times is enough.

Bake the cake for 60-75 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. You can loosely cover the top with tin foil towards the end of baking if it starts to get too dark.

Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 20 minutes then gently turn it out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely before slicing.

Top Tips:

1.For the best results make sure that you follow the recipe closely. As always, I highly recommend weighing your ingredients using the gram measurements (with a digital scale), rather than the cup conversions. Cup measurements are simply not accurate enough for baking and I cannot guarantee the best results if you use them.

2. For the best textured cake it is important to use a vegan block butter/margarine to make this cake – the kind that comes in a foil wrapped block, NOT the spreadable kind in a tub which has too high a water content for baking. I use Naturli Vegan Block but Stork, Vitalite or Tormor blocks are also fine (not the tub versions).

3. You need to use firm silken tofu, which is the shelf-stable kind, not the fridge kind. In the UK it can usually be found either in the ‘Asian’ section of the supermarket (by the soy sauce), or next to the tinned beans.

4. All of your ingredients should be at room temperature, so make sure to take the milk out of the fridge a couple of hours before baking.

5. Don't swirl the two batters together too much once they are in the tin otherwise you will just end up mixing them together rather than swirling. Running a skewer or knife through the batter a couple of times is enough.

6. I left my cake unadorned but it would be lovely topped with chocolate ganache!

How To Store Vegan Marble Cake:

This cake is best stored in an airtight container at room temperature. It will keep for about three days before it starts to go stale.

Can I Freeze It?:

Yes this vegan marble cake freezes really well, either in slices or whole. Make sure that it is well wrapped and freeze for up to three months. Allow to defrost at room temperature.

More Vegan Loaf Cakes:

Vegan lemon pound cake

Vegan carrot loaf cake

Easy vegan banana bread

Vegan pumpkin bread

Ultimate vegan lemon drizzle cake

Vegan courgette cake

Sweet potato bread with pecan streusel

Vegan biscoff banana bread

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5 from 10 votes