Marble Sheet Cake

I have a little secret to share, I've never made a cake from scratch until now. I've always used a box because for some reason making a cake scared me, I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I've tried and failed too many times to count. But I realized I was failing because I was rushing. If a recipe called for softened butter I would either ignore that and put in hard butter, or melt it in the microwave (big mistake), among other time savers (or wasters). Anyway, today we've got friends coming over so I made this marble sheet cake which was super easy, and it looks kind of fancy too. The cool thing is that if you wanted to use other flavors rather than chocolate you can easily substitute the cocoa powder for any flavor pudding mix, just add some food coloring into it so you get that nice marbling effect. Here's the recipe:

Adapted from Southern Living.

Ingredients


1 cup butter, softened

1 3/4 cups sugar, divided

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup half-and-half (if you don't have this use 2/3c milk with 1/3c veg. oil)

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

3 tablespoons hot water
 
1. Preheat oven to 325°. Beat butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar at medium speed 4 to 5 minutes or until creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract.




2. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to butter mixture alternately with half-and-half, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition, stopping to scrape bowl as needed.



3. Spoon 1 1/4 cups batter into a 2-qt. bowl, and stir in cocoa, 3 Tbsp. hot water, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar until well blended.



4. Spread remaining vanilla batter into a greased and floured 15- x 10-inch jelly-roll pan. Spoon chocolate batter onto vanilla batter in pan (I put it into six dollops); gently swirl with a knife or small spatula.



5. Bake at 325° for 23 to 28 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack (about 1 hour).

The recipe is meant to be accompanied with mocha frosting however I didn't have time to make my own and opted to use store bought triple chocolate with chocolate chips frosting.