sour cream marble pound cake

sour cream marble pound cake

• 29 Sept 2025

Last year I went on a quest to find the perfect marble cake recipe. I tried a few recipes but none were quite right so I was quite excited when Erin Clarkson of Cloudy Kitchen posted her marble sour cream cake recipe. Erin is a perfectionist so I knew she would have ironed out any recipe kinks and that the end result would be a dream.

Sour cream is something I don't normally have in my fridge but I had everything else so once the sour cream was procurred I went to work. I made a few small changes to Erin's recipe. I lowered the sugar for a number of reasons but mainly because I planned to ice the cake and I was worried the iced cake would be overly sweet. I used GF flour as my neighbour is gluten intolerant and I increased the bicarb soda a little to overcome any potential density issues. The chocolate sour cream icing is a long standing favourite adapted from a Julia Turshen recipe for her Happy Wife, Happy Life Chocolate Cake.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a small loaf cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20-ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make a larger cake in a Pullman Pan, please refer to the original recipe.

Marble Sour Cream Cake
Chocolate Portion
55g coarsely chopped 70% cocoa dark chocolate

30g room temperature sour cream

Vanilla Portion
115g room temperature unsalted butter

220g caster sugar
3 tsp vanilla extract
3 room temperature eggs
170g room temperature sour cream

185g plain flour (I used GF flour)
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda 

Chocolate sour cream icing
65g roughly chopped 52% cocoa dark chocolate

1/3 cup (85g) room temperature sour cream

2 tsp maple syrup

Method
Preheat the oven to 165°C, conventional. Grease and line a 8.5" x 4.5" x 2.5" (21.5 x 11.5 x 6.3cm) loaf pan with two pieces of parchment paper so that the interior of the pan is lined. Leave the edges overhanging to form a sling to allow for easy removal. Clip the edges down with binder clips if needed. 

Chocolate Portion
Melt the chocolate in 30 second intervals in the microwave, stirring between each interval if needed. Alternatively melt in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water, making sure that the water does not touch the bowl. Leave the chocolate to cool while you make the rest of the cake, then fold in the 30g measure of sour cream once it has cooled.

 
Vanilla Portion
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a large bowl using an electric mixer, cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy, and the mixture has lightened in colour. Scrape down the sides once or twice to ensure that all the mixture is evenly creamed. Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping down the sides as needed. 
Add in the sour cream and mix to combine. 

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, and bicarbonate of soda. Add to the mixture and mix until just incorporated. Scrape the bowl to ensure there are no unmixed pockets of butter at the bottom of the bowl.

Assembly 
Remove 210g of the vanilla cake batter from the mixing bowl and transfer to a medium bowl. If you haven't already, mix the 30g sour cream measure into the cooled chocolate and mix to combine. Add the cooled chocolate and sour cream mixture and mix until combined and homogenous. 

Using a 1 tbs scoop for the chocolate batter and a 2 tbs scoop for the vanilla, or just eyeballing it, blob the chocolate and vanilla batter into the pan. There is less chocolate batter than vanilla so make sure that the chocolate blobs are smaller than the vanilla. I like to do it in three layers - the first layer to almost cover the bottom of the pan, then bang the pan on the counter to remove any bubbles and give the batter a swirl using a butter knife. Then, repeat the blobbing process with more chocolate and vanilla batter. Again, bang the pan on the surface to remove any big bubbles and swirl the batter. Do this one more time with the remaining batter.

Swirl the mixture well using a butter knife, going horizontally and vertically across the pan. Swirl as much or as little as you like. Give the pan one final bang on the counter to make sure there aren't any bubbles. Oil the blade of a small knife and run the blade down the middle of the batter to help give an even split in the cake as it cooks. 

Place the marble cake on the middle shelf of the preheated 165°C, conventional oven and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, checking after about an hour. The outside should be a deep golden brown and a skewer inserted into the cake should come out clean or with a few moist crumbs attached. Leave the cake to cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes then use the parchment paper as a sling to remove from the pan and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. While the cake cools, prepare the icing.

Icing
Place the chopped chocolate into a microwave safe bowl and melt the chocolate in the microwave in 15-second increments, stirring between increments, until melted. Remove from the microwave and whisk in the sour cream and maple syrup. The icing should be smooth and quite silky. Refrigerate the icing until it thickens but is still spreadable. When the cake has cooled, top with the icing and allow the icing to set before serving. Store the cake in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. 

Notes
Because of the nature of the swirling, sometimes you'll end up with some bubbles in the cake. This is fine - make sure you bang the pan a bunch of times on the counter to help remove as many as possible.

As expected, the cake was delicious with a perfect crumb and a perfect swirl and the chocolate sour cream icing was the perfect topping for this cake.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian