Z is for Zebra Cake -

I don’t often bake whole cakes. My oven is situated right smack dab in the middle of the dramatic slope of my kitchen floor and my cakes come out of the oven slanted and enchanted, taking a heavy blow to presentation. But in light of fellow blogstress and dear friend CandyPenny‘s birthday, I was happily on cake duty once again! Now, what to make, what to make? CandyPenny and I have had more than our share of cake through the years. Always up for a baking super-challenge, I needed something truly unique. Then I e-stumbled across something I have never seen before… a Zebra cake. My goodness, it is an absolute work of art! I managed to find a veganized recipe too. I’ll incorporate the recipe into this post with my notes as it needed some tweaks.

Of course you need to start with two separate batters. These batters are thicker and move like sloths off a spoon. They also do not blend when dolloped gently atop each other, which is how you achieve the zebra’s stripes. It is important to use dark, Dutch-processed quality cocoa in this recipe and not that Hershey’s fast-food shit. You want a good contrast between your batters. Plus your cake is only as good as your ingredients. Ditch the $2.99 burnt umber stuff. Once you go black…

Chocolate batter	Orange-vanilla batter
1 cup flour	1 cup flour
1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder	1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt	1/4 tsp salt
2 TB cocoa	3/4 cup juice of squeezed orange
2/3 cup sugar	Zest of one orange
3/4 cup water	1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla	4 TB canola oil
3 tsp white vinegar

Pre-heat oven to 350 and grease a 9″ springform pan.
Make your separate batters in the standard way: sift together dry. Mix together wet and combine.

Now your ready for the zebra part. Spoon about 3 tB of chocolate batter into the center of the greased pan. If you’re doing this on a table on a slanted floor your batter will veer to the right like mine. On top of this glob, spoon 3 TB of the vanilla and pour it to the center of the chocolate glob. Do this until no batter remains. Be patient.

How pretty it looks! All ready for the oven.

And even more beautiful out.

Traditionally I believe the cake is unfrosted. However, I decided to cover it with a rich chocolate ganache so the stripes would be an added surprise. I used Vere dark chocolate and banana-macadamia chocolate

All iced up and ready to celebrate!

Happy Birthday CandyPenny!

Z is for Zebra Cake

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