March 21, 2012

Zebra cake

It was my kid sister's birthday, and a perfect reason for me to try out the wild and funky zebra cake that was all over Pinterest. I read many recipes like here and here, and even sat through a couple of youtube videos. Wishing my lil sis a super duper birthday again, here is my take on the zebra cake. 
Serves: 8-10 persons
Preparation time: 20-25 minutes
Cook time: 35-40 minutes
Slice of Zebra cake
Ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp Dark Cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 large eggs
11/3 cup milk (I used 1%)+ 1 tbsp
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

Method:
  • Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a 9-inch spring form cake pan with a circle of parchment paper. Grease/ spray the bottom and sides of the pan with oil/ butter and flour.
  • In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, milk, vanilla, vegetable oil.  In a medium bowl, sieve the dry ingredients. Pour into wet ingredients and whisk to combine.  
  • Divide the batter into two equal parts in two separate bowls. Set aside one of the bowls.
  • Sift cocoa powder into the other batter and blend until incorporated. If the batter gets thicker, add about tbsp of milk to get runnier consistency.
Pour batter alternately to form concentric circles
  • Slowly pour 1/3 cup of vanilla batter into the center of the pan and let it spread slightly on its own. Now pour 1/3 cup dark chocolate batter in the center of the vanilla. Notice that the chocolate batter pushes the vanilla batter out, and then gradually spreads creating lovely concentric circles of batter. Repeat this procedure till all batter is poured into the pan.
Just before getting baked
  • Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is done and a toothpick inserted to the center of the cake comes out clean. I left mine in the oven for a couple minutes longer, so it had a gaping crack on the top :(
  • Let the cake cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes. Gently flip the cake and peel the parchment paper.  Flip back onto a cooling rack and let cool completely.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.
Fresh out of the oven
P.S. While I usually prefer baking from scratch, box mixes are a great way to experiment. Any white or yellow cake mix would work along with 3 tbsp of dark cocoa and 1/4 tsp salt.


Bon Apetit!
Hetal from Houston

4 comments:

  1. Thanks, Ruchir! You see - I had to bake a great cake for the world's "awesomest" baker!! :) How have you been?

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  2. Hey,

    A variation I tried out today :

    Divide the batter into 3 equal parts in separate bowls. Add an artificial colour to each bowl. For example: You can add red to one bowl, yellow to another and orange to the third. If you crave for chocolate flavour, then you can also add choco powder to one of the bowls. Then, pour in the same manner, according to the colour scheme you want. E.g: Choco at the bottom, yellow in the middle and red on the top. It looks interesting when baked. :)

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    Replies
    1. Hey Puja,

      The tri-colored cake sounds good. I have baked cakes with different colors for different layers, but never tried con-centric circles. Thanks for sharing the idea :) Send me a picture, please!

      Bon Apetit!
      Hetal

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