Hypnocake aka Zebra Cake

Ok, my friends in the blogging community are so talented and they always teach me many new techniques and give me so many new ideas. One of my favorite dessert blogs is written by Crustabakes. Back in April, she wrote about this beautiful caked called a Zebra Cake. It was memorizing…almost Hypnotic lol.  I couldn’t stop staring at it so I had to make it…was it telling me to?

Anyway, I had a friend joining us for dinner and I thought this would be perfect! You would be amazed out easy this was to make. When I make this next time, I intend to use a different cake batter recipe (this one was too oil-heavy for my tastes). If you are using your own cake batter (or…gasp a boxed mix), use a vanilla cake mix and divide it in half after your finish mixing it together. To one half of the batter, add about 2 tablespoons of coca powder (more if you are making a lot of batter). Don’t use batter from two different types of cake mixes (Ex: devil’s food cake with vanilla cake, your cake layers will rise differently and you may not see the layers.  For fun, try dividing the batter into several portions and give them separate colors. Lots of fun can be had with this method. Try it and impress your guests!!!

Ingredients

4 eggs

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of milk

1 cup of vegetable oil

2 cups of all-purpose flour

1/3 cup vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of baking powder

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Combine ingredients (minus cocoa powder)
3. Divide batter into two equal portions.
4. To one portion, add cocoa powder and mix well.
5. Lightly grease a cake pan with cooking spray and line it with parchment paper (cut paper into a circle so it just covers the bottom of pan)
6. Using a 1/4th measuring cup (3/4 of the way filled), scoop the plain batter and pour it into the middle of the baking pan.
7. Using a different 1/4th measuring cup (3/4 of the way filled), scoop the cocoa batter and pour it into the center of the plain batter, in the pan.
8. Without waiting for the batter to spread, keep alternating plain and cocoa batters in the center of the pan. It will spread itself out and gradually fill the pan.
9. Do NOT spread the batter or tilt the pan.
10. Carefully transfer cake to oven and bake for 40 minutes (do not open oven door)
11. When it is baked, slide a knife around the inside of the pan to loosen the cake and then invert the cake onto a cooling rack.
12. Flip cake back over and let it cool.
13. I served my cake plain but you can powder it with confectioner’s sugar, if you would like

Enjoy and don’t let this cake hypnotize you!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM, Corrine and Peter!!!!!!