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Monday, April 25, 2011

Zebra Butter Cake

Afternoon Tea: 25-Apr-2011




Well let's see here... My gf, Adeline posted a status on her FB account with this rainbow cake in mind... and me being me, I just couldn't help myself so I checked it out & so wanted to try it out *hahaha* but thought I should proceed to have a look at a few others for inspiration purposes... and found one from one of my fav bloggers, Not Quite Nigella. Reading her blog led me to her zebra cheesecake which I will do another time using the japanese cheesecake recipe I've found, tried & blogged about... but anyway, so I decided to a zebra version of the butter cake that a friend (Viv Kwan) baked yesterday for our FGA Chinese Church... The straight butter cake she baked tasted very yum & was very cool indeed... hence, the Zebra butter cake inspiration was born - I had all the necessary ingredients *haha*...

Ingredients (serves 12)
  • 250g unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup raw caster sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
  • 2/3 cup milk (I used the usual Lactose free, low fat, Liddell's milk)
  • 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (Homebrand)

  • icing sugar mixture, to serve (optional)

Cake all done... will it look like a zebra?
Method
  1. Preheat oven to 160°C fan-forced. Grease and line bottom of an non-stick 8cm-deep, 19cm - 23cm (base) round cake pan with baking paper.
  2. Using an electric mixer, cream butter, caster sugar and vanilla in a medium bowl on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.
  3. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating to combine until all eggs mixed in. Add half the flour. Stir to combine. Add half the milk. Stir to combine. Repeat with remaining flour and milk.
  4. Separate the cake mixture into 2 parts. Add the cocoa powder to 1 lot and fold cocoa powder in until well mixed.
  5. Zebra stripes = Success! Yay!! :-D
    Put tbsps of cream cake mixture into center of cake pan. Then add about 3 tbsp of chocolate mixture in the center of the cream mixture. Again, add 3 tbsp of cream mixture into center of choc mixture, etc. Keep doing this till all mixture has been used up. 
It is important that you do not tilt the cake pan. The batter will spread on its own. If it appears a bit thick, cut another baking paper the size of the cake base, then put on top of the batter to press batter down so that it spreads & reaches the sides of the cake pan.

6. Bake for approx 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Stand in pan for 10 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Dust with icing sugar (I omitted this part). Serve.
This cake is rather versatile -
(a) if you want a normal butter cake, do the above but omit the part with the cocoa powder & just pour straight into a cake pan & bake.
(b) Try grating the rind of a lemon or orange & adding it to the batter, followed with a couple of tbsp of lemon juice or orange juice, mix well & bake.

ENJOY!!  My kids & hubby loved it... Hubby said was just right & perfect, I thought maybe perhaps the cake could be sweeter... 



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