Zebra Cardamom Cake
Zebra cake used to be my father’s favorite cake when he was a child. My grandmother has always been the bundt cake queen of our family so she naturally had her own recipe for this treat as well. This is my version of the classic with a little addition of cardamom – because there can never be too many recipes with cardamom!
CARDAMOM ZEBRA CAKE
350 g butter, melted
3 cups (about 7-7.5 dl) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp ground cardamom
2.5 cups (6 1/4 dl) granulated sugar
1/2 cups (1 1/4 dl) cacao powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar
6.5 tbsp water
5 eggs
1/2 cups (1.25 dl) milk
Preheat the oven to 175°C.
Mix flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom in a medium size bowl. Set aside to wait.
In a separate medium size bowl, mix 1/2 cup (1.25 dl) of the sugar, all cocoa powder and the water until the mixture is smooth. Set aside.
Whisk melted butter, rest of the granulated sugar (2 cups = 5 dl) and vanilla sugar until the mixture is blended. Add one egg at a time, mixing well after each addition. After adding the eggs, the mixture should be light and fluffy.
Add the flour mixture and the milk in 3 turns. Always mix until blended.
Add about 1 3/4 cups (4.5 dl) of the batter to the cocoa powder mixture and stir until blended.
Butter and flour a bundt cake pan. Pour a thin layer of the light vanilla mixture on the bottom of the pan. Add another thin, uneven layer of the cocoa mixture on top. (The cocoa layer doesn’t have to cover the vanilla layer.) Repeat until the pan is almost filled. Finish with the light vanilla mixture.
Bake the zebra bundt cake for about 60-70 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. (The right baking time may vary a lot depending on your oven and shape of cake tin). Start checking your cake after 50 minutes. If the cake starts to get too dark brown before it’s cooked inside, cover the cake with aluminium foil. Let the cake cool before serving.
