Zebra Cake
Annie and I were back in the kitchen together this week, and she chose an amazing cake for us to bake up – a Zebra Cake! The special part of this yellow and chocolate cake is the way the batter is added to the pan, and thus makes a zebra pattern when it is cut into. The recipe for this cake didn’t include a frosting, but let’s be honest – the frosting makes the cake and I just couldn’t imagine eating a naked cake! I added Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate frosting to the cake, and a half recipe was perfect for the size of this cake. I thought that the flavor of the cake was just alright, but the technique is really very neat. I may try to play around with this using different cake recipes.
The zebra stripe effect is achieved by dropping alternating spoonfuls of batter into the pan. The weight of each additional dollop of batter forces the ones below it to spread out, creating rings of alternating color. Here is what the batter looked like going into the pan:
Making baked goods is always more fun when you have the ability to share them with people, so I was happy to be able to bring this cake home with me for the weekend and enjoyed it with my mom and sister and two of our good friends (I’m second from left):
Zebra Cake
Ingredients:
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk (low fat is fine)
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp almond extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
2½ tbsp cocoa powder
Directions:
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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Bake for 38-42 minutes, until the cake is light gold and a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
6. 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.
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @thebrowneyedbaker on Instagram so I can see it!
Wow! This is so cool! Thanks for showing how to do it 🙂 I’ll be trying this soon.
I love the pics of the layers, it looks very yummy. Cute pic of you and your sis and friends, you all seem to be enjoying it. I’m jealous!
Looks awesome! I had so much fun baking this with you. I love the pic of you all enjoying it, too cute 🙂
I saw this the other day, and it looks too cool! And I totally agree with you about frosting – let’s face it, cake just isn’t the same without it! I must remember to add this to my “to-do” list!
wow, what a neat method! the stripes really turned out great
My first visit to your blog – great job!!! I think this cake is a fun thing to do – wonder what would happen if you tried it with two pans and made a double layer with a chocolate buttercream in the middle or even a raspberry centre.
I love making cameos in your blog 🙂
You and my husband would get along fantastically with your “cake should have frosting” mentality.
Wow, your cake looks amazing! I need to give this a try sometime.
Zebra cake is so popular right now and this looks fantastic!
Aw I forgot about this photo on here! What a good throwback 🙂
Hi! A couple friends and I are making this as one of our cakes for a baby shower we are doing (zoo animal theme). We thought the cake tasted better the next day, but we were wanting to try this with different cake recipes and wondered if you have tried this.
Hi Susan, I haven’t tried it with any other cake recipes, but I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try! Let me know how it works for you!
Wow wow wow. I made this for my brother’s b-day and it was great! Soo tasty and very fun-looking. I didn’t make any frosting for it (my family is sort of neutral on frosting – sometimes I just whip up a small batch for anyone who wants to spread some on their cake).
This recipe is definitely a winner and I’m sure I’ll be making it again soon, with variations (Zebra muffins, anyone? ;D).
I just pulled this cake out of the oven, and it looks fantastic. It cracked a little around one of the layers, but I plan on frosting it so that should be allright. I have a friend who wanted a marble cake for her birthday, and was thinking about using this recipe…is there a way to prevent the cracking the next time I bake this cake?
will this work with cupcakes?
Hi Nikki, I believe it would, however it would be quite time consuming!
I made it a couple of times and it was delicious. The amount of sugar is just right and the recipe really fast. This is not the first recipe I try from this website and all of them are delicious. Thanks for your great work.
I made this cake with a friend of mine, she was very impressed:) I was a big hit-thank you!
I am going to try this recipe, can you please advise if i use butter instead of oil ,
and buttermilk instead of milk
Hi Keja, I would not use butter instead of oil, as it will completely change the texture of the cake. I wouldn’t recommend the substitution of buttermilk, either, as it could affect how the cake raises.
Thank you, Miichelle, for your advise.Noted.
This is the 4th or 5th time I make this recipe. Always a hit. Normally I usually follow your recipe to the dot but today I wanted it a little bit more chocolatey. So to the cocoa powder I added 2tbsp of melted dark chocolate chuncks. I also couldn’t find my almond extract, so I used coconut extract instead. Oh my, oh my, oh my… Heavenly!!! The chocolate flavor was intense Thanks again for this fantastic recipe.