Birthday cakes, what flavour? how should it be iced? those are among the many questions you ask yourself when deciding on a birthday cake to make. And as it was my Mum's birthday I thought why not combine the two; chocolate and vanilla to make Lorraine Pascales zebra cake.
Although it takes a while to put the vanilla and chocolate mixture together in the tin it is well worth it and actually quite relaxing!
One thing that I would like to point out is that the cake I made has 2 layers to it so I had to double the ingredients. Yes, that's a lot of eggs! (8)
Zebra Cake:
*Disclaimer this is not my own recipe, it has been adapted from Lorraine Pascale's recipe*
Ingredients:
250ml Sunflower oil (Plus extra for greasing)
100ml Milk
4 Medium eggs
A few drops of vanilla extract
300g Self raising flour
1tsp Baking powder
25g Cocoa Powder
TIP: The recipe does say to add the zest of one orange to the chocolate mixture but we didn't have any in the house so I didn't use it, however I would definitely recommend it.
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, 350 degrees Fahrenheit, gas mark 4 and line a round tin with some baking parchment and a little sunflower oil.
2. Put the oil, sugar, milk, eggs and vanilla extract together and beat with a fork until well combined.
3. Pour half the mixture (400ml/400g) into one bowl and the other half into another bowl.
4. Sift 175g of self raising flour and half a teaspoon of the baking powder into one of the bowls. Mix till well combined. This is the vanilla mixture (I added a little extra vanilla extract as well.)
5. Sift the remaining 125g of self raising flour, half a teaspoon of the baking powder and the cocoa powder. Mix till well combined. This is the chocolate mixture.
6. Put a tablespoon of the vanilla mixture into the center of greased and lined baking tin then using another tablespoon add a tablespoon of the chocolate mixture to the center of the vanilla blob. Repeat this until the mixture just touches the edge of the tin. Don't be surprised if the center moves around the tin.
TIP: Don't use a teaspoon I did this for the first cake layer and the stripes were too thin and didn't appear very clearly so use a tablespoon.
8. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes.
9. Check if its cooked by inserting a skewer into the center of the cake. If it is remove and leave to cool if not continue to cook it for however long necessary.
10. Ice the cake or leave it plain and enjoy.
For the icing I used the hummingbird chocolate cream cheese icing for both the filling and the topping and once again I doubled it. For the top I just used melted dark and white chocolate.
Icing Recipe:
*Disclaimer, this recipe is not my own it is adapted from the hummingbird bakery*
Ingredients:
300g Icing sugar
50g Butter
125g Cream cheese
25g Cocoa Powder
Method:
1. Beat the icing sugar, cocoa powder and butter using an electric mixer until well combined.
2. Add the cream cheese and continue to beat for at least 5 minutes until well combined. Do not over beat.
You can make this cake for any occasion and I assure you it will be a success! And no one needs to know that it isn't that hard to make the strips!
Mmmm!
