Simple cake that is pure wow! Made even better with fresh local berries!!
Because I make so many cakes (… love them all!) I find it hard to choose… chocolate… or… vanilla? The easy solution was to try a ‘zebra’ cake. You ask… What is zebra cake? Well, it’s the perfect blend of half dark chocolate and half vanilla batter poured into a presentation that will wow.
Any simple cake batter can become a zebra cake, it’s all in the method you use to pour it into the pan. I go into more detail in the recipe, but it’s all about pouring alternating cupfuls of vanilla and chocolate batter into the center of the pan. They roll out in waves to produce this awesome pattern!
Oh, and one more thing… Summer is the time to take advantage of all the local produce, so plentiful in your farmer’s market or grocery store. Strawberries are in season so I add them to everything – salad, pork chops you name it! When making this cake I thought what a perfect addition fresh local berries would make! Nailed it!!!
Zebra Cake with White Chocolate Buttercream and Strawberries
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup canola oil
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 Tbsp dark cocoa
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF Lightly spray a 9” round baking pan with cooking spray. Line the bottom with a circle of parchment and spray again.
- In the bowl of a mixer, cream sugar and eggs at medium until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. On low, add oil, milk and vanilla until smooth.
- In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Then add to wet ingredients. Combine on medium for 1-2 minutes until batter is smooth.
- Remove 2 cups of the batter to another bowl. Sift the cocoa over the batter and stir until well combined and smooth.
- Now, it’s easy to make the stripes: Use 2 – ¼ cup measures. Scoop ¼ cup of vanilla batter and slowly pour into centre of the prepared pan making a small circle. Then, scoop ¼ cup of chocolate batter and pour directly into centre of the vanilla batter circle causing it to spread out. Continue with alternating batters making sure to keep pouring them into the CENTRE circle with each addition.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. After 10 minutes, turn out on a wire rack. When fully cool, make White Chocolate Buttercream (recipe below) and frost liberally. Serve with sliced fresh strawberries. Enjoy!
Notes
½ cup butter, room temperature
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
1/3 cup 10% cream
1 tsp vanilla In a mixing bowl cream chocolate, butter and ½ of the sugar until light and fluffy, about 1-2 minutes. Add remaining sugar, cream and vanilla and continue to cream until smooth.
Heather
hlhowe65@gmail.com
99.242.230.210
Submitted on 2014/07/26 at 6:59 am
This cake looks amazing! I was wondering how many servings it makes? I want to make it for my Mom’s birthday. There will be 10 adults so I was thinking I would increase the ingredients and make it in a 10-inch cake pan.
Submitted on 2014/07/26 at 2:11 pm | In reply to Heather.
The 9-inch round will serve 8-10 very comfortably. Come back and tell me how you liked it!
What is the equivalent of 2 squares of white chocolate please. I ounce per?
Yes, 1 ounce per square.
The cake turned out very dense and not fluffy n light. Did I miss out something?
Sorry to hear that Karen. You must have done something wrong, as I have made this cake many times and it is moist and delicious.
Heather
hlhowe65@gmail.com
99.242.230.210
Submitted on 2014/08/15 at 9:00 pm
I made the cake for my Mom’s birthday an it was a great hit! Everybody was impressed with the pattern of the cake. The cake was moist and tasty and the icing delicious! I will definitely make it again.
Hi Heather, I’m delighted that the Zebra Cake was a big hit. Thanks for coming back to tell me!
VANILLA IS MISSING FROM YOUR INGREDIENT LIST HOWEVER MENTION IN THE RECIPE BODY, I ASSUME 1 TSP OF VANILLA
OMG, thanks for the catch! It is 1 tsp vanilla, I have updated the recipe. Thanks!
We have baked this recipe many times for orders especially of birthday cakes of children. The patterns are so impressive and the moist tenderness of the core body very desirable.
Last week, I tried the Zebra cake and it was super moist. And you know what I forgot to bookmark or pin the recipe.
Today, I had a hard time searching for this online. And all that I remembered of this was that you used two 1/4 measure cups for pouring batter. And the pic of the cake was in my mind – all that I remembered of it was that it was the only zebra cake online that had risen so well, every grain of flour had risen to look like a grain of sand. Beautiful.
Finally, found it! 🙂
I am planning to try it again today, but this time, I want to reserve 2 tbsps of flour and add it separately to the vanilla batter. As the last time, the chocolate batter was denser and the vanilla batter was thinner.
Thanks Lori for sharing such a delicious recipe!
Do you think this recipe doubled will be enough for a 12×18 pan? I could do rectangular pouring pattern instead of circles to get similar pattern…what are your thought?
It sounds like it will work. Just adjust the cooking time and keep a close eye that edges don’t get too brown.