Calico Quilt Cake

"Haven't you just wished you could make a cake that would look-and taste-just stunning?  Here is the opportunity you have been looking for.  For this cake is "different".  It's a marble cake-gay and colorful inside-and with an icing "patterned" to resemble a "sprigged" calico quilt...the whole as lovely as sun through rain."

What else could I possible say? 

Only there's bad news for the folks of 1940...and today.

These Gold Medal bastards are tricky! They supply the ingredients list without amounts and then as they start the instructions they trail off to "....." 

If you want the full recipe you'll have to buy the bag of Gold Medal Flour which has the full details...along with a time machine!

This kind of nonsense has never stopped me before when making an interesting dish.  As a matter of fact, I didn't realize the recipe was missing until I had the cake done.  I just use these vintage ads as a 'serving suggestion" and then I do it my way, meaning I'm using a boxed cake mix!

I took a white cake mix and divided the batter into 3 bowls.  I added some cocoa powder to one and some red dye and a pack of strawberry powdered drink mix to another.  The plain white batter I poured into the pan first and smoothed it flat.  I then dropped blobs of the other two batters into the white and swirled them. 

The white icing is, as always, just prefab tub cream cheese.  I made the chocolate icing myself from this recipe (still working on perfecting it though).

On the 1940s cake they added crushed peppermints as the decorative flare but I haven't been to Sonic lately so I am all out.  

I used chopped up gum drops instead.

 

Here is the cake's gay and colorful innards!

From what I can tell from the vague original ingredients list, the pink portion of the cake was only white-cake -flavor so I took the risk of doing some experimental flavoring with it by using the strawberry sugar free powdered drink mix.  It turned out ok, but I always think those fake mixes taste a bit chemically.  I'll have to try out some sugarfull stuff or maybe Kool Aid.  I can't be "normal" and just use strawberry extract!