What makes this cake so fun is that you can make the marble any colour you like! Try purple, yellow or even blue, then match the frosting colour to the cake. 

Makes 1x20cm loaf 

Ingredients

For the cake 

1¼ cups (250g) granulated sugar
½ cup (125g) butter, room temperature
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
½ cup (125ml) oil
2 tsp (10ml) vanilla extract
2 ½ cups (375g) cake flour
2 tsp (10ml) baking powder
½ tsp fine salt
1 cup (250ml) buttermilk, room temperature

For the pink marble 

 2 cups batter
Pink food colouring 

 For the pink Funfetti frosting 

 1 cup (250g) softened butter
4 cups (520g) icing sugar, sifted
Pink food colouring
Sprinkles 

 Method  

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC. Grease and line a 20x15cm loaf tin.
2. Add sugar and butter to the bowl of a stand mixer. Whisk for 2 minutes on high, until creamy and light in colour.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly in between each addition.
4. Add oil and vanilla to egg mixture and whisk through.
5. In a separate bowl, sieve together flour, baking powder and salt.
6. With the mixer on low speed, add half the buttermilk, allowing to combine fully before adding all of the flour.
7. Once the flour is almost completely combined, add the second half of the buttermilk. Whisk for 20 seconds, or until smooth batter forms.
8. Scoop two cups of batter into a bowl and use a toothpick to dot with pink food colouring, mixing until bright pink.
9. Add spoonfuls of each batter to the tin, layering all around each other.
10. Use a spatula or knife to swirl through the cake, making ribbons of pink and vanilla.
11. Bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean (if the top is browning too quickly, cover with foil). 

12. Cool cake in the tin for 20 minutes, then remove and allow to cool completely.
13. For the frosting, beat together butter and icing sugar until smooth and pale, about 3 minutes.
14. Use a toothpick to dot food colouring onto the icing, then whisk until bright pink.
15. Lather frosting over the top of the loaf and decorate with sprinkles. Slice and serve.

Recipes & Styling: Sjaan van der Ploeg
Photography: Zhann Solomons