Zebra Cake - The Cake Slice Bakers Cake of the Month!

It has been close to almost 10 months now since I last baked with The Cake Slice Bakers group. When the winning recipe this month chosen by it's members (more than half picked this one) was announced, I was extremely keen to join in again. Why so? It was a Zebra Cake! I have seen what this cake looks like in photos, absolutely gorgeous it's design, but have never tried making it or even tasted one before.

The original recipe had only two colours i.e. vanilla and chocolate. Well, me being me, decided to try something different ... be a bit bolder by adding stronger colours. So I darken the chocolate batter with black food colour and added an additional stripe of colour, a bright red. I was extremely intrigued as to how the stripes were achieved so I did everything slowly to make sure that I did not read the instructions wrongly. As I started pouring the coloured batter on top of each other, I could not for the life of me figured out how the stripes could be formed. But as more batter was poured into the cake pan, the circular stripes started to appear. I loved doing this part and oohhed and ahhhed every time a circle was formed. I think my pet shitzu Milo must have thought his "mummy" had gone totally bonkers.



I must say that this cake is really a piece of art, truly lovely to look at. However taste-wise I thought it was alright! Much like a butter cake but somehow not quite as flavourful. However I don't mind making this again just to get a "kick" in watching the stripes come together.



Zebra Cake
Recipe Adapted from Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman
Makes one 9" round cake

Ingredients:

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup whole or 2% milk
113g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp unsweetened Dutch cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp orange zest
1/2 tsp black food colouring
1 tsp red food colouring

Method:

1) Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a 9 inch pan, line with a circle of parchment paper, grease the parchment and dust with flour. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.

2) Combine the eggs and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high speed until thick and pale, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, stir in the milk, butter, oil and vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice as necessary. Stir in the flour mixture, 1/2 cup at a time.

3) Divide the batter into 3 bowls - one larger bowl containing half of the batter and 2 smaller bowls containing 1/4 each of the batter.

4) In the larger bowl, add in 1 tsp of orange zest and mix into the batter.

5) In one of the smaller bowls, add in the remaining orange zest and red food colouring. Mix well.

6) In the second smaller bowl, sift in the cocoa powder and mix well into the batter. Then add in the black food colouring and stir until the batter is a uniform colour.

7) Place 3 tablespoons of vanilla batter into the centre of the pan and let it stand for a few seconds so it spreads out slightly. Then add in 1 1/2 tablespoon of the red batter in the middle of the pan and wait another few seconds until it spreads. After that add in 1 1/2 tablespoon of the cocoa batter in the middle of the pan and wait for a few seconds to allow it to spread.

8) Continue alternating the vanilla, red and cocoa batter until you have used up all the batter and it has spread to the edges of the pan.

9) Bake until the cake is set and a toothpick comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Run a sharp knife around the edge of the pan and invert the cake onto a cutting board. Peel away the parchment paper. Re-invert onto a wire rack and cool completely. Slice and serve.

10) Store uneaten cake in a cake keeper or wrap in plastic and store at room temperature for 3 days.