Zebra Cake

I first saw this impressive cake in Sailu's blog and couldn't wait to try out it. It looked very intricate leaving me in a dilemma whether to go for it or not. When you go through Sailu's blog, you know what an expert she is. The inferiority complex in me surfaced which prevented me from baking this wonder. Then I stumbled upon Divya's blog where she too has written about her inhibitions before venturing into this cake and her success story really gave me the necessary push and here I am TADA!!!

It gives me immense pleasure to share with you all that this cake won me accolades from two hardest to impress critics - Abbas and Ma. Abbas is a miser when it comes to appreciating me verbally coz he assumes that I can anyway read his eyes and mind. But damn it! Don't we women love to hear it? And Ma hates anything chocolatey! Yes such species exist in this world and in the form of my mother-in-law. Strangely this was the first thing she accidentally ate and blurted out that it was good. Yipppeee!

Ingredients:

4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup oil (corn, vegetable or canola) - I used sunflower oil
2 cups maida/all-purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 tsps baking powder
2 tbsps dark cocoa powder

Method:
1. Combine eggs and sugar in a bowl till light and creamy. Add milk, oil and vanilla essence and beat till smooth.

2. In a separate bowl, combine maida and baking pwd. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat until the batter is smooth and the dry ingredients are completely incorporated. Do not overbeat.

3. Divide the batter into two. Add the cocoa pwd to one portion and combine well.

4. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease the baking pan. The most important part is assembling the cake batter in a baking pan. Pour 3 heaped tablespoons of plain batter into the middle of the baking pan. Then pour 3 tablespoons of cocoa batter in the center on top of the plain batter. Continue alternating with plain and cocoa batter without pausing for the batter to spread.

5. Bake for 40 minutes. Insert a toothpick into the center of the cake it should come out clean when ready. Remove from the oven. Run a small thin knife around the sides of the pan to loosen the cake. Leave aside for 15 mts and invert the cake onto a cooling rack. Turn the cake back over and cool further.