I made this cake for New Years Eve. It is pretty spectacular to look at, it also happens to be a decadent dessert. The "zebra stripes" are actually remarkably easy to achieve, all you need is 2 contrasting coloured cake batters. The only stipulation is that they are of similar consistency.
Because I was making this for a NYE party and anticipated that there might be a lot of interest I made 2 cakes. The logistics of this were that I made a whole orange cake and a whole orange chocolate cake and then followed the "zebra" technique across 2 pans to get the desired effect. I will give both recipes below. The chocolate one is slightly sloppier and makes a larger quantity of mix. I'll explain how I dealt with that later.
If you don't have a crowd of 30 to feed and don't want a freezer full of slices of cake (not that that is a bad thing) I'd recommend only making the recipe for the whole orange cake, dividing it into 2 bowls and adding 100g of melted dark chocolate (I used Lindt 70%) to one of the bowls of mix. You will get the same effect with much less fiddling around. I wish that thought had occured to me on the 30th December!
It goes without saying that either recipe also makes one plainer but equally dense and delicious cake. It will need somewhere in the vicinity of an hour to bake but could take longer depending on your oven. You may also need to loosely cover the cake with foil during baking if it looks like it is browning too quickly.
The Recipes
Whole Orange Cake
Ingredients:
2 medium sized oranges
2/3 cup blanched almonds (about 110g packet)
1 cup caster sugar
1tsp gluten free baking powder
6 large eggs
2 cups almond meal
2Tb gluten free plain flour
Method:
place oranges in a large saucepan and cover with cold water (they will float, so just add quite a lot of water). Bring this to the boil, drain, refill with cold water and bring to the boil again. Cook for about an hour keeping an eye on the water level. The oranges should be well cooked and soft/tender. Drain again and allow to cool. I usually do this the night before I plan on making the cake.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a baking tray with baking paper, spread the blanched almonds out over it and place them in the oven. You are aiming to toast these but be careful because they burn easily so check frequently and get them out when they are just starting to change colour. It will only take a couple of minutes.
Using a food processor pulverise the toasted blanched almonds with 2Tb of the sugar.
Then process the oranges (skin and all but check for seeds and remove them if you can) together with the baking powder. You are aiming for a thick, sloppy orange paste.
In a large bowl beat the eggs with the remaining sugar until thick and lighter in colour. Then using a wooden spoon or similar implement fold in the dry ingredients and the orange.
At this point it is ready to go in a pan. It will make a round cake of about 20cm diameter. I use a lightly greased spring-form tin and line the base with baking paper.
If you are making this into a zebra cake, divide the batter evenly between 2 bowls, melt 100g of dark chocolate with either a splash of olive oil or about 1tsp of Nutelex or similar dairy and soy free margarine and fold that through one of the bowls
This cake should bake in about 1 hour.
Whole Orange Chocolate Cake
Ingredients:
2 medium sized oranges
200g dairy and soy free dark chocolate (I used Lindt 70%)
100g Nutelex (dairy free margarine)
8 large eggs
1 1/3 cups caster sugar
3 cups almond meal
Method:
As above, place the oranges in a large saucepan full of cold water and bring to the boil, drain and repeat the process, cooking until tender. This is done to reduce any possible bitterness from using the skin and pith in the cake. Drain and cool.
Melt the chocolate and butter together. You can do this however you feel comfortable. I melted them in a small saucepan on my stove. You can go right ahead and use the microwave or even a water bath if you feel more comfortable with that.
Process the oranges to a thick pulp paste.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together until thick and lightened in colour. Then fold in the orange, almond meal and chocolate mix. Try not to overmix it. You will end up with a uniform dark colour when it is right.
This is also now ready to go into a tin. It will also fill a round cake tin of around 20cm diameter although there is more mixture and you may have enough extra batter to make a few cup cakes. Grease and line the base of your tin.
This cake may take a little longer than the other to bake because it is a wetter mix. Expect it to take about 1 hr 20 mins.
You will know the cake is cooked when a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. If the cake is underdone mixture will cling to the skewer.
Again, if your cake is browning too quickly you can loosely cover the top with foil to protect it.
Now the fun part! The pattern is achieved by dropping equal quantities of batter into the middle of the pan in alternating colours. If your cake batters are really similar then try 3Tb dollops. My batters were a bit more challenging. I used 3Tb of chocolate, 2Tb plain. I started and finished with chocolate as well.
The overall effect is one of concentric circles forming in the pan. You can "drop" the batter quite forcefully to achieve this if you need to.
My cakes took just under 1 1/2 hours to bake. I covered them both with foil and removed it for the last 20 mins of the cooking time.
When they are cooked, run a knife around the side of the cake to loosen it and release the cake from the tin. Cool right side up on a rack before transferring to your serving platter.
Serve dusted with pure icing sugar, berries and (for those who can eat it) thick cream.
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