Zebra cake!? What on earth could that be? If you’re imagining a cake striped like a zebra, then you’d be correct! This cake comes out perfectly soft and moist with very light flavors and, more importantly, looks fantastically impressive! The elaborate design is really the only reason I desired to make this cake in the first place because it seemed very fun and different, not like your everyday plain, one colored cake.

I first came across a recipe for zebra cake when browsing My Kitchen Snippets and, although very intriguing, I figured it would be much too time consuming to actually create. Boy was I wrong! In fact, making the striped pattern couldn’t be any easier! All it involves is constantly alternating between vanilla and chocolate batter, a few tablespoons dropped in the center at a time. The magic of physics does most of the work for you by allowing the layers to spread out more and more as you add on another.

Zebra Cake

(Recipe from Farida’s Azerbaijani Cookbook)

• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup milk, room temperature
• 1 cup oil (corn, vegetable, or canola is fine)
• 1/3 teaspoon vanilla powder (I actually used 1 tsp vanilla extract instead!)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons dark cocoa powder such as Dutch-processed (nothing too bitter!)

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine eggs and sugar. Using a hand-held electric mixer or wire whisk beat until the mixture is creamy and light in color.
2. Add milk and oil, and continue beating until well blended.
3. In a separate bowl, combine and mix flour, vanilla powder and baking powder. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and beat just until the batter is smooth and the dry ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. DO NOT OVERBEAT to prevent air pockets from forming in the batter.
4. Divide the mixture into 2 equal portions. Keep one portion plain. Add cocoa powder into another and mix well.
5. Preheat the oven to 350˚F (180˚C).
6. Lightly grease the pan with oil. If you don’t have non-stick baking pan, grease whatever pan you have then line it with parchment paper (baking paper).
7. The most important part is assembling the cake batter in a baking pan. This is what you do. Scoop 3 heaped tablespoons of plain batter (you can also use a ladle that would hold 3 tablespoons) 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. The pictures below will guide you through.
8. Bake in the oven for about 40 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 cooking rack. Turn the cake back over and let cool. You can sprinkle the top of the cake with some powdered (confectioner’s) sugar or leave it plain.

Although the chocolate batter was absolutely fantastic, I found the cake as a whole to just be alright. Next time I’d probably add more vanilla to it or maybe substitute the vanilla section with something else. Either way this cake goes grand with some coffee or even coffee ice cream (as seen in the picture above!). I’m sure adding some sort of icing would make it even more fantastic because this cake by itself, although pleasant to the eye, isn’t flavorful enough to be worth it (unless of course you like that type of stuff!)