Marble Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

Marble Cake: Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line two 8” cake pans with parchment paper and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Sift the cake flour and baking powder together, stir in salt and set aside. Whisk the milk, vegetable oil and vanilla extract until just combined; set aside.

Cream the sugar, butter and salt in the bowl of a mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, on medium speed until light and fluffy, approximately 5 to 7 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl between additions.

Add half of flour mixture and half of the room temperature milk to the mixing bowl. Mix on low speed until incorporated. Then mix on medium speed for a few seconds to lighten.

Add the second half of flour mixture, and the second half of milk and mix on low speed to incorporate. Then mix on medium speed for a few seconds to lighten batter. Remove bowl from mixer and scrape by hand with a rubber spatula, making sure to loosen any remaining creamed mixture from the bottom of the bowl. Remove one half of the cake batter; set aside.

Sift the cocoa over ½ of the batter. Gently fold in the cocoa until the batter has a uniform color.

To create marbling effect, use a spoon to dollop vanilla and chocolate cake batters around the pans at random, covering the bottom of each cake pan. Add a second layer of randomly spaced dollops and level out the batter in each pan so they will bake evenly. No need to swirl batter together.

Bake for approximately 35 minutes or until the top bounces back and an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool. Wrap in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Cream Cheese Frosting: Cream the butter and salt in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment on low speed for 1 minute or until soft. Sift the powdered sugar into the mixer and mix on medium-low speed for about 5 minutes or until smooth and light.

Add the soft cream cheese, mixing on medium-low speed without adding a lot of air. Thin with heavy cream, if needed to achieve a spreadable consistency.

Assembly: Remove parchment paper and place one layer of the cake, bottom side down, on a serving plate. Remove any doming on top of the layer with a serrated knife. Spread with frosting. Remove any doming from the second layer and invert on top of the bottom layer. Remove any parchment paper. Spread a thin layer of frosting on the sides of the cake to seal in any loose crumbs then spread the remaining frosting onto the top and sides of the cake.