This Marble Birthday Cake is the perfect cake for chocolate and vanilla lover's alike! It's a soft vanilla and chocolate marbled cake with alternating vanilla and chocolate frosting! The batter is super simple to make, no machine required and best yet, it's gluten free, nut free, eggless and easily vegan!
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line two 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper and lightly grease with vegetable oil.
In a large bowl whisk together the gluten free flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the 1 ¾ cups milk of choice, light brown sugar, vegetable oil, white vinegar and the vanilla.
Slowly add the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and whisk to combine. It if gets too thick, switch to a spatula but it should be fairly liquidy.
This recipe makes around 4 cups of batter. Take about 2 cups of batter and put it in a separate bowl.
In one of the bowls of batter, add in the ¼ cup of cocoa powder and the 2 remaining tablespoons milk of choice. Mix with a spatula until combined. It will be thick.
Divide the vanilla batter into two equal halves. Divide the chocolate batter into two equal halves.
Using a small cookie scoop or a tablespoon, put one scoop or one large tablespoon of batter in each cake tin. Repeat with the other batter flavor. Then, alternate back and forth with the batters.
You want half the vanilla batter and half the chocolate batter to go in one cake tin and the other halves to go in the other. Once done, smooth the tops of the batter with a butter knife.
Bake the cakes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 40 minutes or until the vanilla tops of the cakes are golden brown and spring back at you when carefully touched or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Remove cakes from the oven and let them cool in the cake pans almost completely.
Once the cakes have cooled completely, if the tops of your cakes have domes, you can very carefully slice them off to make the tops flat.
Put the vanilla frosting into a piping bag and the chocolate frosting into another piping bag.
Place one layer of cake on a cake plate/stand. Pick a flavor of frosting. I started with the chocolate.
Pipe a ring of chocolate frosting around the edge of the top of the cake. Then pipe a vanilla ring. Repeat this process until you reach the center of the cake. (See blog post above for pictures).
Place the other cake, bottom (or flat) side up so the top of the cake is nice and flat. Frost a thin layer of cake on the top. It doesn't matter which flavor because we will be covering it with ganache.
Take your vanilla frosting and pipe a ring going all the way around the cake, in the middle of the cake, where the two cakes meet. Then pipe a ring of chocolate frosting above and below the vanilla, going all the way around the cake.
Next, take a cake scraper or a large icing spatula and scrape the frosting all the way around the cake so it blends. It should be a thin layer.
Pop the entire cake in the fridge, uncovered. This will make it more stable to work with.
For The Ganache
Place chocolate chips in a heat safe bowl. Place heavy cream in a pan on the stove over medium heat.
Whisk constantly until the edges begin to simmer. Immediately pour on top of chips and do NOT mix!
Let sit 1-2 min then whisk until fully combined and smooth.
Make The Drip and Decorate
Take the cake out of the fridge. Spoon almost all of the liquid ganache on top of the cake. Take an icing spatula and push the ganache around to the edges of the cake so it drips down the sides. Work quickly since the cold cake will harden the ganache fast.
Pipe swirls all around the edge of the outside of the top of the cake.
Top with mini chocolate chips and chocolate and white sprinkles and nonpareils.
Notes
Storing: Store extra slices wrapped in foil in the fridge for up to 2 days. Warm in the microwave for 5-10 seconds.Freezing: Freeze extra slices wrapped in foil in a zip top bag for up to 30 days. Place in fridge overnight to thaw and then microwave for 5-10 seconds. To make vegan: Use a non dairy gluten free flour, vegan baking sticks, vegan sprinkles, vegan chocolate chips and and only use a vegan heavy cream, or use my vegan ganache recipe from my strawberry red velvet cake.