Zebra cake

I usually have a very definitive and egotistical idea about my next recipe. I only sometimes feel generous and ask others what they feel like.  I asked Hania, my 10 year old.  She wanted a zebra cake this time.

Light, not moist, with a nice crust on top. The chocolate taste is very subtle. The cake is not too sweet, it's delicate and simple. Perfect with a glass of milk. Not bad with champagne. A very Italian thing to do. It's worth trying.

 A pleasant addition to any beverage making a satisfying game for your senses.

And what about this pattern? A cake never looked better! I'm jealous.

The making is easy. I just had to pay attention to the consistency of the two batters. They had to be equal. And the batter had to be drippy enough to leave the spoon and land in the baking form by itself. I had to add about 1/3 cup of water, after I ran out of milk, to the cocoa batter. Hania was doing the mixing, I was doing the dripping. The batters were spreading slowly to the sides. The cake was looking more and more beautiful, with alternating dark and light circles, but the final result surprised us all. Zebra...here it comes!

Recipe adapted from Giallo Zafferano

time: 25 min preparation + 50 min baking + 10 min cooling = 1h 25min
ingredients
150 g (10 Tablespoons) butter room temperature
220 g (1 cup + 1 Tablespoon) sugar, not less
6 eggs room temperature
300 g (2 cups) flour
140 g (1 1/6 cups) potato flour/starch
2 teaspoons ( 8 g) baking powder
1 Tablespoon vanilla sugar
30 g (1/3 cups) cocoa
100-120 ml (about 1/2 cup) or more, milk

directions
Preheat the oven to 180C/355 F. Butter and flour (extra butter and flour) a 24 cm (9 inch) round spring form.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, 100 g (3/4 cups) potato flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar.
In a bowl a standing mixer, beat butter with sugar till light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at time, mixing constantly and scraping the bottom of the bowl occasionally, about 3 minutes. Turn the mixer off.

Transfer the flour mix into the butter mix. Combine it well with a spoon. Add about 100 ml (1/3 cups) milk. The batter should slowly drip from the spoon - that's the desired consistency. Prepare two medium bowls. Divide  the batter into two even parts and place them in the bowls. Mine weighted 830 g (1.8 lbs) each. Add cocoa and 40 g (1/2 cups) potato starch to one of the parts. Combine it well with a spoon. The two parts should have an equal consistency. The cocoa batter tends to be thicker, add 20 ml milk, or more if needed, to the batter. Remember, the batter should be slowly dripping from the spoon.

In the middle of your prepare form, drip about 2 Tablespoons of light batter. Then, in the middle of light batter, drip about 2 Tablespoons of cocoa batter. The batter should be slowly spreading but staying in the middle. Alternate till all the batter is gone. Without shacking the form, place it in the hot oven for 1h. It the toothpick comes out clean from the middle of the cake, your zebra cake is ready. Cool it 10 minutes.