Zebra Cake | How To Make Zebra Cake from Scratch

There is a dialogue in the movie Forrest Gump- “My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.” So true for me now that I am relocating to another city, Chennai to be precise. It was in the cards for a long time and I was mentally preparing myself to relocate there. However, let me assure that I would continue to post new recipes and interact with all you friends ( although not at the same rate till I stabilize). So the last post that I am uploading in Bangalore is Zebra cake. 

The beauty of this cake is that there is no icing required and it looks very attractive. Also it can be preserved in an air tight container for days. So, till the time I start posting new recipes from Chennai, this is Deepa signing off with this wonderful cake .

Recipe Source : From various internet sources I drew the pattern and made it here after 2-3 attempts.
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup All purpose flour
2 Eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup Oil (any vegetable oil)
1/2 Milk
2 tbsp Dark Cocoa powder
1 tsp Baking powder
3/4 cup Sugar
1 tsp of pure Vanilla extract
1/8 tsp Salt

Method:
Grease cake tin (8 inch) and dust some flour to the bottom of the pan and the sides too. Invert the pan to remove the extra dust. Pre-heat the Oven to 180 Degree C.
Combine dry ingredients ie. flour, baking powder, salt and set aside. Take a deep mixing bowl and beat sugar and oil together on low speed with a hand mixer. Add milk and combine well. In a separate bowl beat one egg at a time until smooth and fluffy. Add this to oil-sugar liquid batter. Add vanilla extract and combine well. Fold in the dry ingredients (except COCOA) and combine it with wet batter. Now divide the batter into two equal parts and keep in separate bowls. Keep one bowl as it is and add cocoa powder in another. Mix the cocoa batter to remove any lumps. Now there are two options to spread the batter on the pan to make the pattern.
1) You can simply spoon the batter with alternative cake batters.
2) or you can use piping bags for the pattern.

Start by pouring 2 tbsp of vanilla batter in the center of the pan. Immediately pour 2 tbsps of  cocoa batter on top of vanilla mixture. Then without stopping repeat with the vanilla batter in the middle of chocolate batter.

 Remember not to tilt or rotate the batter to spread as it will automatically spread by itself. Continue to alternate between cocoa and vanilla layers till the batter finishes.

just before going into the Oven

Carefully transfer the pan into the Oven and bake for about 40 minutes. Do not open the glass door in between or else it will have some cracks on top. Check with a toothpick, insert Let the cake cool completely on a wire rack and then invert. Sprinkle some confectioner sugar if you want.