You start with one batter and end with two! This cake is easier than it looks. The Zebra Marble Cake, with its beautiful namesake “Zebra pattern” of chocolate and vanilla, is your perfect tea-time companion. It’s not too sweet and not too “chocolaty”. It’s soft but sturdy enough to hold heavy frostings too! The perfect partner for high teas or parties.
For me, tea time means coffee time (yeah, I am not a chai person, sue me!) A mug of hot whipped mocha latte, a slice of zebra cake, or maybe homemade pancakes, or or or chocolate chip blondiesss! And omg! What an evening that would be.
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Ingredients
You need very basic pantry staples for this cake. Here are some notes on the ingredients:
- Eggs – They need to be at room temperature for the perfect cake.
- Castor sugar – Castor sugar or any fine sugar would work. If your sugar is particularly course, then you will have to grind it a little bit into fine sugar.
- Flour – This cake is comparatively denser and closer to a pound cake. Skip the cake flour and use the good ol’ all-purpose flour.
- Baking powder – Make sure your baking powder is fresh and within the expiry time.
- Milk – Any full fat milk would do. Room temperature milk works best!
- Vegetable oil – Any neutral oil would do. Coconut oil (without the aroma) works well too.
- Vanilla essence – Please always by the good stuff and not the imitation vanilla. And that goes for all recipes really.
- Cocoa powder – This recipe is very forgiving as it isn’t heavily reliant on the cocoa powder. So you can use any cocoa powder at hand, the Dutch-processed one, dark or light one.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities
Step by Step
Here’s a simple pictorial to show you how to create the Zebra pattern.
Step 1: Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla essence together.
Step 2: Beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.
Step 3: Add oil to the batter and beat for 1 minute.
Step 4: Add all-purpose flour and baking powder to the batter and beat until fully combined.
Step 5: Add milk to the batter and beat for another 1 minute.
Step 6: Divide the batter into two halves and add cocoa powder to one of the halves. Beat to get a smooth mix.
Step 7: Use equally sized ladles on spoons to pour batter into a lined round baking tray.
Step 8: Drop The batters alternatively into the cetnre of the pan.
PROTIP: Pouring the batter from the TIP of the spoon will give you even concentric circles.
Step 9: Repeat until all the batter is used up.
Step 10: Bake the cake at 170 C for 50 minutes of until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Love how this cake is just the proper amount of soft and dense. Its dense enough, that it can be frosted and covered if need be, while also being soft enough to be eaten just as it is. Serve it with tea, fruits and icing sugar sprinkled on top.
Expert Tips.
- Using ingredients at room temperature ensures a light and fluffy cake. Bring out the eggs and milk on the counter before you start preparing for baking.
- Use identical spoons or ladles for both batters so you automatically pick up equal amounts of batter everytime you are pouring.
- Through trials and errors I’ve realized, that adding cocoa powder to one batter makes it slightly denser. So now I also add an extra tablespoon of flour to the vanilla batter to balance both the batters. This trick helps in an even pattern.
- While most recipe calls for equal batter distribution, I have found through multiple testing that the lighter batter should always be slightly more in quantity. So the vanilla batter can be just a little over half.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! You can. Use the same technique on the loaf pan cake as well and you will get a zebra like pattern.
That is the best thing about this cake actually! It’s freezable! Keep the slices in an airtight container or cling wrap. Thaw in the microwave for 10 to 15 seconds whenever you want to have a slice.
Yes! With cocoa powder you can add red color to create a red velvet and vanilla zebra cake. You can also use three different batters instead of two.
More Desserts on the Blog
Do you have any questions? I’m happy to help! And of course, If you try this recipe, I’d loveeeee to see it or simply hear about it! Hit me up in the comment section below and I’ll get back to asap! Happy Cooking!
Zebra Marble Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 whole eggs at room temperature
- 1 cup castor sugar or fine sugar
- 2 cup all-purpose flour + 1 tbsp extra at the end
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 cup milk at room temperature
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- few drops vanilla essence
- 2 tablespoon cocoa powder
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 175°C. Prepare a 9-inch cake pan by spraying with baking spray or buttering and lightly flouring.
- In a bowl, combine all purpose flour and baking powder. Set aside.
- In another bowl, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla essence together for about 3 to 4 minutes or until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- Add oil and beat again for 1 minute.
- Gradually add the flour mix to the egg mixture and just beat until flour is mixed well, do not over-beat at this point.
- Add milk and beat only enough till the batter is combined.
- Divide the batter into two roughly equal portions.
- Add cocoa powder to one portion and similarly add 1 tablespoon flour to the other portion. Beat with an electric mixer seperately until well combined.
- Using large spoons or ladles, pour 1 spoonful of vanilla batter in the centre of the prepared cake pan. Add a spoonful of chocolate batter right on top of the vanilla in the centre. Continue this process alternately till you have eventually used up the entire batter.
- Bake for 50 minutes. Check by inserting a toothpick in the centre of the cake, if it comes out clean, remove the cake and let it cool down.
- Serve plain or top off with icing sugar and fruit
Notes
- Presentation – Finally, serve it freshly whipped cream and fruits or just have it warm with your evening tea.
- You can freeze this cake covered in cling wrap or an airtight box.
- You can experiment with flavors and use food color instead of cocoa powder to create different color zebra pattern.
- This cake can last for upto 10 days in the fridge.
Umeimah Zia says
This is such a perfectt recipe. Tried it today and the patterns came out so well. And taste was delicious too, a perfect tea time partner ????Loving it ❤
Wajiha says
I saw the picture you sent me on instagram! lovedddd it!
Iqra Syed says
Must try.. It turns out sooo good!! ❤️
Zuneira says
When should we add milk and oil ??
Wajiha says
milk and oil are added before the flour, it is mentioned in the steps on the recipe card hun
Natasha says
Hello….this looks delicious. Would you be able to suggest a good frosting recipe for this. Thinking to make for my sons birthday. Will have around 50 people
Secondly can I freeze this. Thank you !!
Wajiha says
Hey Natasha! thankyou for reaching out to me! For around 50 people I would suggest to make triple this cake’s quantity. I’ve made this vanilla frosting, chocolate frosting and coffee frosting and it works with all of them! Here’s a quick chocolate frosting recipe that you can use with this cake:
1 & 1/2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 cups icing sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
3 – 4 Tbsp heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
In a the bowl, whip butter on moderately high speed until very pale and fluffy (nearly white in color), about 5 – 8 minutes, occasionally scraping down sides of the bowl.
Sift in cocoa powder and icing sugar, heavy cream and vanilla and mix on low speed until combine, scrapping down the sides of the bowl as needed and adding up to 1 tbsp additional cream to thin if desired.
Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any more questions. I’d love to see a recreation of the cake if you make it! 🙂 best of luck!
Peanuts and cacahuetes says
Definitely a recipe I want to try!! This looks delicious!
I love marble cake but never tried doing one actually! Time to change that! 😉
Wajiha says
I know right! marble cakes are so versatile! Give it a go! Lemme know what you think 🙂
Quratulain Mehdi says
This is amazing! Im always in awe at people who love baking – the patience, the taste and the presentation of the food. I can almost do only one thing haha. I have tried making a zebra marble cake before but failed miserably. I think i’ll forward this to my sister would loves baking. Thank you for sharing 🙂
Wajiha says
hahaha U r so cute! Aww try it with her! if u can do just one thing, bake! 😀 all the rest will come naturally