Zebra Cake

Adapted from: Baking Bites
Made by: Cathy

On 10/20 I was planning on making 2 pies. One fresh pumpkin pie (post to follow) and a sweet potato pie (not done yet as of this post). Gary calls and tells me that he's going to buy a cake. I tell him, I can just make a cake instead. I debated whether to make a carrot cake or a chocolate cake. I looked through my recipe binder and saw the recipe for the zebra cake I haven't tried yet. There was my opportunity to make it.

Ingredients:
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk (low fat is fine) (I used low fat lactaid)
1 cup vegetable oil (I used half oil, half applesauce)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp almond extract (I omitted)
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 9-inch round cake pan with a circle of parchment paper and lightly grease the bottom and sides of the pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together eggs and sugar until mixture is light and creamy and the sugar has mostly been dissolved. Stir in milk, vegetable oil, vanilla and almond extracts.In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Pour into wet ingredients and whisk to combine. Measure out just over two cups of vanilla batter and place it back in the medium bowl. Sift cocoa powder over the bowl and whisk until fully incorporated.
3. Put 3 tbsp of vanilla batter into the center of the pan and let it spread slightly on its own. Put 3 tbsp of chocolate batter in the center of the vanilla. It will push out the other batter and, as it sits for a moment, will also spread itself. Alternating spoonfuls of the two batters, repeat the technique until all the batter has been used up.

I poured the vanilla batter from a measuring cup and eyeballed the amount. For the other half, I measured the batter out by the tablespoons from the mixing bowl.
The result: a mesmerizing bulls eye.

4. Bake for 38-42 minutes, until the cake is light gold and a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
5. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes, then turn out the cake and remove the parchment paper. Reinvert on to a wire rack and let cool before slicing.
Serves 10.

I baked it for about 45 min. It was still coming out runny in the center. It was a little crisp on the edges and it cracked on the middle.



I couldn't present that for someones birthday, so I ended up adding store bought frosting. Before I frosted, I trimmed off the burnt edges.

BTW, I let Gary start writing the greeting, and that's why "happy" looks like that.

All in all, it came out pretty well. I didn't have the almond extract, so I omitted, but that was probably the flavor it was lacking.