play hide and seek with this beautifully striped cake. Technique is everything when making this scene-stopper. I couldn’t resist a warm slice as soon as it was removed from the oven..
This is certainly not as hard as it looks and what an amazing name for a very impressive cake. It is certainly going into my favourites.
See how Loraine Pascale does it and check out her recipe below.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Zebra Cake
Makes 12 wedges
250ml sunflower oil
250g caster sugar
100ml semi-skimmed milk
4 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
300g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
25g cocoa powder
Rind of 1 orange
1 Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4. Grease a 24cm sandwich tin with a little oil and line with baking parchment, then oil again. Set to one side.
2 Put the oil, sugar, milk, eggs and vanilla extract in a bowl and beat everything together well. Do not use an electric whisk as this will create bubbles.
3 Pour out 400ml of the entire mixture into a separate bowl and sift 175g of the flour into it, along with 1/2tsp baking powder. Mix well and set aside. This is your vanilla mix.
4 Sift the remaining 125g flour and the other 1/2tsp baking powder into the other bowl. Add the cocoa powder and the orange zest, then mix well. This is your chocolate mix.
5 Now put 1tbsp of the vanilla mix in the middle of the tin. Then, using a clean spoon, put a blob of the chocolate mix in the middle of the vanilla one. Keep doing this, alternating between vanilla and chocolate so you form a type of “bull’s eye”. Each time you add a blob of mixture, it will spread out on the base of your cake tin. By the time you’ve used up the mixtures, it will have reached the edge.
6 Bake in the oven for 35mins. Check the cake is cooked by inserting a wooden skewer into the centre. If it comes out clean, the cake is ready; if not, return the cake to the oven for a little longer.
7 When ready, remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 10mins. Remove the tin and finish cooling it on a wire rack.
8 Then eat it!
