Learn how to do two-toned spirals in the Heritage bundt pan with this detailed tutorial.
The response to my Rocky Road Bundt Cake was amazing!! I’m so happy that people liked it, and many of you asked for a tutorial on how I did the multi-colored spirals. Unfortunately, I rarely take pictures when I’m baking. I never think of it. It’s too chaotic and messy, and my kitchen doesn’t have the best natural light for photos. So I wait until everything is finished, and then haul all my photography gear and props into my brightly lit living room for photos. It’s a pain in the ass, I’ll be honest. While I was making the Rocky Road bundt, I did actually think: people are gonna want to know how to do this, I should be taking pics. So I took ONE crappy picture, but it didn’t tell the story at all. So for this tutorial post, I had to bake the whole thing again.
This was not the easiest thing to do given where I usually take my photos. My setup includes using a center leaf from our dining room table as the surface, which I place on an ottoman in the living room for better lighting. To get overhead shots, I climb a stepladder and do my best to not fall over onto the whole setup while taking photos. There was just no way I was going to climb up a stepladder every 2 minutes for this tutorial though, AND I didn’t want to go back and forth between my kitchen for each step because that 15 foot distance is really just too much for my lazy self. So, I placed the table leaf on the floor so I could stand over it to take pics, and I literally sat on the floor doing every step of this tutorial. The whole process (making bundt batter, step-by-step photos) took about 2 hours start to finish. No joke. That doesn’t include cleaning, or taking photos of the glazed cake the following day because it clouded over once the cake cooled and I lost my light. Not that I’m complaining or anything, hah.
Oh and also, this is actually a three-toned bundt, but my 3rd tone was a bit of a fail. In light of not wanting it to be too dark chocolate, I made it too light and it looks like the plain one. Oh well! At least there’s an even distribution of colored spirals this time.
For this tutorial you’re going need a bundt pan (obviously), enough pastry bags for each color you do, enough cake skewers for each color (or something equivalent), and a spatula.
Alright, lets get started. At this point I’m going to assume you’ve already prepared your bundt batter and colored it per the directions in the recipe below. The recipe I used this time is a very basic pound cake that’s easily customizable, but you can use any 10-cup bundt recipe for this pan. And really, this technique should work in most bundt pans (depending on your patience), but the one I’m showing specifically is the Heritage Bundt pan from Nordic Ware.
Step #1: Grease your bundt pan (I used cooking spray), and fill each of your pastry bags with one of the colors of batter.
Step #2: Cut the tip off the bag with the darkest color. I can’t remember why I started with the dark, but it made sense to me at the time… Be careful not to cut off too much or it will be harder to control the flow! (Glasses to hold your piping bags come in handy).
Step #3: Pipe the batter into the spirals, offsetting by the amount of colors you have. If you only have 2 colors you’ll have an uneven amount of spirals as I did in the Rocky Road Bundt. Not many people noticed this, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
Step #4: Use a cake skewer to nudge the batter into each crack and up towards the center of the spiral.
Step #5: Fill the rest of the spiral with the cake batter by piping it in.
Step #6: Spread the batter out evenly using the same skewer or a spatula. Be careful not to let it creep into the neighboring spiral. If it does, just nudge it out with the skewer. The good thing is that these areas of overlap will likely be covered with a glaze if you use one.
Step #7: Repeat process above with the second color.
Step #8: And a third color if you have it.
Step #9: Using a skewer, merge the batter between the spirals so there are no gaps.
Step #10: Roughly pipe in the rest of the batter. It doesn’t really matter how you do this, as you’ve already created a “shell” for your cake. Last time, I just layered each color. This time I tried to keep with the general flow of the spirals.
Step #11: Marble the batter (optional) with a cake skewer, and spread the top evenly with a spatula.
Step #12: Bake per directions in your recipe. You can see here how the two lighter colors pretty much blended together.
Step #13: Pray. Flip your bundt cake out onto a cooling rack. You can kiiiiinda see the 3 colors here.
Step #14: Glaze and devour.
I hope this two-toned tutorial has been helpful. If anything’s unclear or if you have any questions, please just ask! And if you like this kind of tutorial post and want more like it in the future, let me know what you’d like to see in the comments below!
Two-Toned Bundt Tutorial
Ingredients
Cake:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter room temperature
- 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 5 large eggs room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup milk room temperature
- 2 Tbsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder optional
- 2 Tbsp black cocoa powder optional
Glaze:
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 3 Tbsp milk
Instructions
Cake:
- Preheat oven to 325F and grease a 10-cup bundt pan with cooking spray.
- In a medium bowl, whisk flour and baking powder, set aside.
- In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar on med-high until pale and fluffy (approx 5mins).
- Add eggs one at a time, fully incorporating after each addition. Add vanilla.
- Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in 3 portions, alternating with 2 portions of milk. Mix until just combined.
- Separate the batter into 3 bowls.*
- Add 2 Tbsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder to one and 2 Tbsp black cocoa to another. Mix each until well combined.
- Prepare 3 separate pastry bags and fill each with one of the batters.
- Pipe the batter, alternating the colors, into the cracks of the Heritage bundt pan, being careful to avoid spilling over into neighbouring cracks. **
- Once cracks are sufficiently filled, add remaining batter in alternating layers and use a kitchen skewer to marble it. Spread the batter evenly.
- Bake for 55-60mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and transfer bundt pan to cooling rack for 10-15mins. Rap the bundt pan against the counter to loosen it then turn cake out onto cooling rack to cool completely.
Glaze:
- Combine powdered sugar and milk in a medium measuring cup. Stir until well combined. Add more milk as needed until desired consistency is reached. Pour glaze into cracks of cooled cake.
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Notes
**I used a kitchen skewer for the finer points of the cracks. It's a process.
Note: Prep time is 45mins assuming you're doing the colored spirals. Otherwise it would take 20mins or so. NOTE: Measurements in grams have not been tested. An online tool was used to convert these measurements. Adapted from Add a Pinch.
Ruth-Ann says
Hi, I have successfully used this recipe and the rocky road one. They look fabulous! I am inspired by someone else’s recipe for a smores cake in this pan. That includes Graham crumbs in the batter. Sadly that was a fail for me. I’d like to use your pound cake with crumbs. Any suggestions on how much or how to adjust the recipe for it? Thanks!
Olivia says
Hi Ruth-Ann! So nice to hear from you again. I actually have a S’mores Bundt cake recipe here: https://livforcake.com/inside-out-smores-bundt-cake/ Let me know if you give it a try 🙂
Andrea says
I came here from a Google search for a candied hazelnuts recipe and loved your detailed instructions. Then I saw a photo of this two-tone cake on that page and could not resist clicking on it. It is so beautiful, I am now on the lookout for the pan on sale. Your detailed instructions and photos are much appreciated. It takes a lot of effort to cook or bake, but to take pictures and develop a recipe is a whole ‘nother thing. I like that you post tips and little fails you’ve experienced also. Can’t wait to try this and many more of your recipes!
Olivia says
Hi Andrea! Thank you so much for your sweet comment. I am so glad you find my posts helpful! I hope you find this pan soon — I sometimes see them at Homesense (Homegoods or similar) for a steal. I hope you love this recipe!
Cindy says
Am making this in the coming week. You mention that you didn’t add enough regular cocoa to make a color difference in the 3 color version. Does your recipe reflect that, or is it modified to make a more distinct color diff between the three??
Olivia says
Hi Cindy! The recipe is what you see in the pics. It looks pretty in the slice shot with the three colors, but not so much with the spirals. I would add a bit more regular cocoa powder if you’d like the colors more distinct 🙂
Ruth-Ann says
I’ve already made the rocky road cake – so worth the effort (visually anyway; I didn’t get to taste it). Now for another two-toned version. Silly question perhaps but will this cake be heavier than the Rocky Road cake? I’d like to do a two-toned as a birthday cake but due to peanut allergies, can’t do that other recipe. Usually such cakes are lighter texture but if this one is similar to the meyer lemon cake or lemon poppyseed texture, that would be ok. You mentioned easy to modify flavor – A nice strong vanilla would work. If I wanted orange flavor for the light color cake, would I just add orange zest to that one batter? Or maybe substitute orange for vanilla for the whole cake… or maybe just after I divide the batter? Thanks!
Olivia says
Hi Ruth-Ann! This is more of a traditional pound cake recipe. I would use my Meyer lemon cake recipe and swap out the lemon for orange in it 🙂 When adding flavouring, it’s important to do it before the flour gets added as you don’t want to overmix the batter too much once you add the flour.
Ruth-Ann says
Thanks Olivia. That’s easy enough. How could I add chocolate as the second ‘color’/flavor? Just add 2 TBS black cocoa powder to half the batter? Would I need to increase the liquid a bit? Thanks!
Olivia says
Yes I would just add any kind of cocoa to it. No need to add more liquid, for such a small amount it should be fine 🙂 Let me know how it turns out!
Ruth-Ann says
Merci! 🙂 Will definitely let you know!
Ruth-Ann says
Hi Olivia,
Well, I adapted the meyer lemon recipe as you suggested and it turned out great so thank you! For some reason, it was messy (partly due to an overfilled piping bag but also maybe ingredients were a bit too warm) so not 100% perfect this time round (maybe I’m a 1-time-wonder – haha). However, it looked really good, tasted good, and the texture was spot on. Next time I may use a bit more cocoa (used 3 TBS) b/c it wasn’t as chocolate-y as I wanted but the orange flavor came through. I’m pleased with the result and my dad was thrilled with this as his birthday cake. Next up: Chai cake in the blossom pan for Mother’s day! 🙂
Olivia says
So happy to hear that Ruth-Ann! Glad it worked out and that your dad loved it 🙂 Exciting about the Chai Cake! I hope you like it too 🙂
marilyn warren says
I HAVE THIS TIN ALREADY AND AM LOOKING FOR A RECIPE WHICH IS A PLAIN CAKE IF I OMIT THE COCOA DO IN NEED TO INCREASE THE FLOUR OR WHAT WOULD YOU SUGGEST?
Olivia says
Hi Marilyn! You can just leave the cocoa out.
EILISH says
Hi! I have your cake in the oven presently. I mixed things up a bit and used only two colours. I used your Graham cracker cake recipe for the light and it piped in lovely, then I poured the remaining chocolate batter from the recipe above in with the cake. I’m not sure if the pressure from pouring the batter in will upset the alignment of my cake, but damn that Graham cracker batter is delightful! Thanks so much for posting the tutorial, it was nice to see recipes using one of my existing pans. Oh, a question, for your chocolate cheesecake bunch, your crown pan, is it Nordicware?
Olivia says
Hi Eilish! I’m so glad you gave this one a go! Love that Heritage Bundt pan (and the graham cracker cake batter 😉 ). The crown pan is from NordicWare! You can find it here: http://amzn.to/2wftXjy
Ross says
Just stumbled into this recipe and wow! this looks amazing. Never had I any intention to try and make any bundt cakes before and now, I could blame you for making me wander into the bakery supply store to look for the pan. Though I havent had any luck yet (well, from where I come from, bakery supplies is far too limited), I won’t give up. Love this!
Olivia says
Hi Ross! I’m so excited that you’re excited about the Bundts! This pan is particularly a fave 🙂 I hope you can find it somewhere.
Andrea says
It’s available online now. There’s even a generic one too. It’s a little pricey for me and I like to avoid Amazon, but hope this helps you out.
Edite sousa says
Just love this cake, unfortunately cannot get a hold of the pan in South Africa. A huge fan of yours. Thk u for sharing.
Olivia says
Hi Edite! What a shame, I hope you’re able to get it someday, somehow. It’s my favourite Bundt pan!
Liliana says
Simplemente, !!Maravillosa !!! Acabo de comprar el molde y lo voy a inaugurar con tu enseñanza, gracias, Le envio un cariñoso saludos desde CHILE, El fin del mundo.
Olivia says
Hi Liliana! Thank you!! I’m excited that you’re going to try this! Please let me know how it turns out 🙂
Noga says
Thank you so much for this! I saw your gorgeous cake and just had to buy that beautiful pan, and within a day I made a two toned bundt with your recipe and tutorial, with chocolate ganache on top. It came out beautifully and it tastes amazing, everyone in my family was just floored by it 🙂
Olivia says
Hi Noga! So glad it worked out for you! I love that pan, you will get a lot of use out of it :).
Donna Coleman says
Hi Olivia,just happened across your beautiful picture and the tutorial. What an inspiration! I have taken several cake decorating classes and this is going to be my next challenge. My family is always eager for my new trials that they will get to enjoy eating.
I do have a question for you though, what is the difference in chocolates you used? Cocoa & black, does that mean cocoa powder and dark chocolate cocoa powder?
Olivia says
Hi Donna! I’m so excited that you’re going to try this!! Black cocoa powder is super dark, it’s what’s used to make things like Oreo cookies. You can find some online here. I’m not sure if dark chocolate cocoa powder is the same as black (I don’t think so), but if it’s noticeably darker than regular cocoa powder, it will work just fine :). Hope that helps!