Eggless Zebra Cake

Now that I had a perfect eggless sponge cake recipe, I wanted to tweak it myself to make something else... something that is more special and different. Agree that the Zebra cake is doing rounds in the blog world for quite sometime now, but I hardly found an eggless version! That made me try it out myself, and here is the outcome.

It has a lovely texture, is very easy to make, is butter-less, has very few easily available ingredients, and most of all, is Eggless! And it has a nice contrast of vanilla and chocolate flavors and colors making it awesomely appealing!

I baked it with little niece Hima around and told her it was a Zebra Cake. She hesitated for a moment and replied, ‘No, atte!! It is a tiger cake - it is not black and white, it is brown and yellow’! Ohh right!! It is a tiger cake, isn’t it? ;) Had you ever thought of this?!

Eggless Zebra cake

Preparation time : 20 min
Baking time : 35-40 min

Ingredients:

All-purpose flour/Maida – 1 1/2 cups
Sugar – 3/4 cup (The original called for 1 cup)
Baking powder – 1 1/4 tsps
Baking soda – 1/2 tsp
Salt – a pinch
Thick curd – 1 cup (I used set curd)
Cooking oil – 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence – 2 tsps

Additionally:
Coffee decoction - 2 Tbsp
Cocoa powder - 2 tsp
Milk - 2 Tbsp

Procedure:
• Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F. Grease a round pan and set aside.
• Powder the sugar and in a bowl, mix the curd and sugar till the sugar dissolves.
• Stir-in the baking powder and baking soda into the curd mixture. Mix well and set aside for 2-3 minutes. The curd will turn frothy and start rising and increasing in volume.
• In the meanwhile, sieve the flour thrice and set aside.
• Add the oil and vanilla essence to the curd mixture. Stir gently so that the air in the mixture is not lost.
• Next, gently fold in the flour. Don’t stir very vigorously; do it gently. The batter should have a dropping consistency. (Since I used set curd, the batter was a little thick still)
• Divide the batter into 2 equal parts
• Mix the cocoa powder and coffee decoction without any lumps
• To one part of the cake batter mix this coffee-cocoa mixture and stir to incorporate
• To the other part, mix in 2 Tbsp of milk to adjust the consistency

Assembly:
• Place the greased pan on a flat surface
• Pour 1 Tbsp of plain batter in the middle of the pan;
• Without shaking the pan, pour the brown batter over the first
• Repeat with the two batters alternately till the entire batter is used up
• Do not even touch the pan in the whole process; the batter will spread by itself and reach the circumference
• Lower the temperature to 180C/350F, and bake for 35-40 minutes, till the toothpick inserted comes out clean
• Once done, remove from oven and let the tin cool on a wire-rack for 10 minutes. Run a serrated knife around the edges and upturn the cake from the tin and let it cool on the wire-rack for a good amount of time before you can slice it.
• Once fully cooled, slice the cake with a serrated knife and enjoy it with a cup of tea or as is!

(I can NEVER wait for the cake to cool!! So always, my first piece would crumble since it would be barely warm when cut!!)

Notes:
• Do the measurements of the ingredients accurately - Oil can be reduced by a Tbsp or so