Melanie’s Food Adventures – Zebra Cake

Drum roll please….. I would love to welcome my first guest blogger, it’s my new found friend and fellow Manchester United fan Melanie from Melanie’s Food Adventures.  Here’s her first post, enjoy!

Thank you so much to Richard for asking me to be his first guest blogger, I’m really excited to be writing for his page!

My name is Melanie, and I write a food blog here in the North East of Scotland. I enjoy baking and cooking savoury dishes for my wee family and love trying out new, but not complicated, dishes. I try to find a balance of something tasty that doesn’t require oodles of ingredients and that looks the business! So with that in mind….. here’s my Zebra Cake….. I hope you enjoy!

You looking for a cake that makes a statement but involves minimal effort? Well, you’ve come to the right place… that was lucky, wasn’t it? 😉

I saw a video recently of someone making this cake and fell in love with it. I love the process of making it, Mr Food Adventurer just laughed when I showed him the video, saying it was too much work, but to someone who loves the whole baking process, I couldn’t wait to try it out. It was then one of my lovely Facebook readers pointed out that Lorraine Pascal had also made one (and upon investigation it was actually within one of her books that I had only recently bought and not noticed!) that sealed the deal to bake one! I love the fact that it looks way more complicated than it actually is, I’m always on the look out for these types of bakes 😉 The resulting cake is gorgeously light, with the flavours of chocolate, orange and vanilla combining perfectly, with no one flavour overpowering the others.

INGREDIENTS (makes 1 cake that can be divided up into as many slices as you wish – or how generous you feel!)

• 250ml Sunflower Oil (plus extra for greasing)
• 250g Caster Sugar
• 100ml Semi-Skimmed Milk
• 4 Medium Eggs (at room temperature)
• A few drops of Vanilla Extract
• 300g Self Raising Flour
• 1tsp Baking Powder
• 25g Cocoa Powder
• 1 Large Orange

METHOD

1. Preheat your oven to 180⁰C, 160⁰ Fan, 350⁰F, Gas Mark 4. Grease the bottom of a 9″ springform sandwich tin with a little oil, line with baking parchment and oil again, including up the sides of the tin before placing on a large baking sheet.
2. Place 250ml Oil, 250g Caster Sugar, 100ml Milk, 4 medium Eggs and a few drops of Vanilla Extract into a large bowl and beat until well combined. If you can, use a food mixer as opposed to an electric whisk as the aim is not to add too much air and bubbles into the mixture.
3. Pour out half the mixture into a measuring jug and sift in 175g Self Raising Flour and 1/2tsp Baking Powder. Mix well and set aside.
4. In the bowl with the remaining mixture, sift the remaining 125g Self Raising Flour, 1/2tsp Baking Powder and 25g Cocoa. Finally, using a fine grater, zest your Orange into the bowl and mix well.
5. You now have your vanilla and chocolate mixtures…… here’s where the fun begins! Put a tablespoon’s worth of the vanilla mixture into the middle of your tin. Then spoon a tablespoon of chocolate mixture into the centre of the vanilla one. Keep alternating between the two mixtures until you’ve used up both, which will form a ‘target board’ effect in your tin. As you put in each spoonful, the mixture will slowly move further out to the edge of the tin.

   

6. Place your tin into the oven for 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Once done, remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes. Now carefully remove from the tin and transfer to a cooling rack until completely cool.

   

   

Melanie, Food Adventurer

In true Wheelie Good Meal style here’s a downloadable pdf you can print for when you make it.  I know for a fact that this one wont last long especially if you have little ones running about your house.  Thanks Melanie for a cracking recipe (it’s nice to know I have friends who can make up for my lack of expertise in the baking department)

This Tuesday we will be reviewing a gadget…. it’s most certainly Time-Saving, I’m not going to tell you what it is, you’ll have to wait and see – I promise I won’t make you wait as long as we’ve waited to find out who killed Lucy Beal….. (dramatic pause and cue the duf dufs) 😀