Baking for Nightshift- Zebra Cake

For a while now I have been wanting to make one of these zebra cakes. Looking on the internet there seem to be be either absolute success with the look of these or total failure. The idea is that you spoon in alternate colours of cake (in this case and most, chocolate and vanilla) which ultimately gives you a cake which when you cut into it, looks like the stripes of the zebra. In my case I had neither epic failure nor epic success. I'm not sure why but I do have a couple of theories. The first is that I only poured in 1/4 c of each mixture at one time therefore not giving each 'stripe' enough...oomph; and the second is that maybe adding the cocoa to half of the mixture makes it heavier and therefore it is more likely to sit on the bottom of the cake. However if this were the case then no ones cake would work. If anyone has any ideas as to why please let me know so I can reattempt it and be able to post a total success next time. 


This is a pretty standard flavour of cake and is probably most comparable to a marble cake. Most comments about on on the internet said it was really a looks cake rather than a flavour cake which was why I elected to ice it with a chocolate buttercream before I took it to work last week. I think it tasted good but wasn't anything too special. If the 'stripes' had turned out it would have been amazing but as I have said, on night shift when you need a sugar boost, it worked just fine. Interestingly the recipe I'll post was pretty much the same one all people used so who am I to rock the boat....

The 2 mixtures (I used dutch processed cocoa so I thought the chocolate part might have been darker than it was)

The beginning of the layering

All done

Looking at it I can see why the 'stripes' were a bit thin

A slice before icing

Zebra Cake


2c flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 large eggs
1c plus 1 Tbsp sugar
1c milk
1c vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp cocoa powder


Oven to 170 C and grease and line a 23 cm cake tin.


Sift flour, baking powder and salt together.


In a large bowl mix eggs and sugar until smooth and pale. Add the milk and oil and beat again for another minute or so.


Add flour mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in the vanilla.


Divide into two and add the cocoa to one half.


Take 2 small cups of equal size and pour a cupful of the white batter into the centre of the pan. Then pour in a cupful of the dark batter directly into the centre of the white batter. Repeat until all the mixture has been used up. You don't need to wait for the batter to spread before adding the next colour. 


Bake about 45-55 mins (depending on your oven).