Zebra Cake

Zebra Cake used to be one of my most favourite desserts when I was little. This cake is quite popular back where I am from, which is a beautiful country of Azerbaijan. Recently, I remembered about this cake and wanted to recreate it. One of my friend’s mom (also from Azerbaijan), here knows how to make this cake, but I couldn’t get a hold of her at the time to get the recipe, so naturally, I turned to the life saver, otherwise known as Google!

The first link with this recipe that came up was this fabulous cooking blog called AZ Cookbook. I was so happy to find this beautiful lady, Farida, who is also originally from Azerbaijan, now living in sunny California. Her food photography is absolutely mouth watering, and most of her wonderful recipes come from Azerbaijan, which is so nice to see. Looking through her blog brought back lots of happy childhood memories. I was so happy to find and befriend this wonderful lady, that I promise to do a more thorough feature on her fabulous blog, very soon!

Back to the cake… This is a very simple recipe, that produces a beautiful end result, that impresses anybody who sees this fabulous cake.

Here is a list of ingredients that you will need:

Flour, Baking Powder, Cocoa Powder, Eggs, Milk, Sugar, Vegetable Oil (canola or sunflower is fine), Vanilla Extract, Cooking Oil Spray & Springform Pan (or whatever baking pan you have)

Start by cracking all the eggs into a mixing bowl, and add the sugar.

Now beat the eggs with the sugar using a mixer or a whisk, until the mixture is light in colour.

See how it becomes lighter and creamier, that’s what you want to see…

Now to this, add your milk & the oil

And mix together, until it’s well combined.

In a separate mixing bowl, combine and mix well together flour, baking soda and vanilla extract. I have to mention here. Farida’s recipe calls for vanilla powder. But since all I had was the vanilla extract, I used that. Which would have been fine, if I added it to the wet ingredients. I only realized I made a mistake when I had small bumps in the flour mixture. So, the lesson here is, either use vanilla powder and add to the dry ingredients. Or if using vanilla extract like me, add it to the wet ingredients. It’s not a big deal, but I thought I’d mention it anyways.

Now, gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet and beat together with a mixer until the batter is smooth and the dry ingredients are well combined. Farida mentioned this on her blog too, and I will stress this point also: DO NOT OVER BEAT, to prevent air pockets from forming in the batter. To be honest with you, I think I did overbeat mine, as you will see some air pockets in the end result. So listen to her, and don’t overbeat!

Next, separate the batter into two equal portions. Either by eye-balling like I did, or if you’re more precise, by measuring it all out. Either way, once you separate the batter into two bowls, leave one as is, and add cocoa powder to the other one and combine using a mixer.

This is what it will look like.

One dark, one plain.

Opposites attract.

Ying & Yang

Alright, alright… I’ll stop right there, before I go any further.

Now, preheat your oven to 350F (180C).

Grease your baking pan by spraying with some cooking oil, or line it with parchment paper if you don’t have cooking spray oil. The point is, to do whatever you can to prevent the cake from sticking to the pan.

Now the fun part begins!

The assembly of the two batters in the baking pan, that gives you that beautiful zebra effect. Basically, all you do is alternate the light and the dark batters, but here is the detailed instructions as described by Farida here:

Scoop out 3 full tablespoons of plain batter into the middle of the baking pan. Then scoop 3 tablespoons of cocoa batter and pour it in the center on top of the plain batter. IMPORTANT! Do not stop and wait until the previous batter spreads – KEEP GOING! Do not spread the batter or tilt the pan to distribute the mixture. It will spread by itself and fill the pan gradually. Continue alternating the batters until you finish them.

Just keep going…

Until all the batter is finished. I like to finish off with a dark layer. Just because I think it looks nicer and provides a good visual contrast. This is how mine looked like, just before going into the oven.

Bake in the oven for about 40 -45 minutes. Do not open the oven door at least the first 20 minutes or the cake will shrink and will not rise. To check if the cake is ready, insert a toothpick into the center. It should come out clean when ready. Remove from the oven. Immediately run a small thin knife around the inside of the pan to loosen the cake, then invert the cake onto a cooling rack. Turn the cake back over and let cool.

Those were the very well explained instructions by Farida. But of course, the impatient me, I couldn’t wait to let the cake cool. So I cut into it right away… And this is why you see some parts are mushed together. Because it was still hot. So, LET IT COOL for at least 10-15 minutes before you cut into it!

It’s a delicious cake, and nothing beats the beautiful presentation of it!

Make it soon, you will love it!

Zebra Cake
Preparation time: 10 minutes, baking time: 40 minutes

INGREDIENTS

4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup (8 oz / 250 g) granulated sugar
1 cup (8 fl oz / 250 ml) milk, at room temperature
1 cup (8 fl oz / 250 ml) oil (corn, vegetable or canola is fine)
2 cups (10 oz / 300 g) all-purpose flour
1/3 teaspoon vanilla powder or extract
1 tablespoon (equals 3 teaspoons) baking powder (if not available, substitute with 1 teaspoon baking soda)
2 tablespoons dark cocoa powder

Enjoy with a hot cup of tea or a glass of milk. However, you choose to eat it, you are sure to love this rich and moist cake.

Thank you Farida for this wonderful recipe!