Bake, Run, Live

One last patriotic recipe!

Baker’s Royale was the first blog that I had ever seen a Zebra cake (here and here). I thought they were really interesting and I added it to my baking to-do list.

Well, with the 4th of July quickly approaching, I thought making a red, white, and blue zebra cake would be an eye-catching dessert! It is a little bit of work, layering the batter, but I was pleased with the results.

Photo courtesy of Nick

Red, White, and Blue Zebra Cake
Recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour
Prep time: 40 minutes     Bake time: 40+ 60 minutes

2 cups (4 sticks) butter, softened
2 cups vanilla sugar
9 large eggs, separated
4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
Red and Blue food gel coloring

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 10-cup bundt pan* by greasing and flouring. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add in the egg yolks, one at a time, and incorporate well. Set aside.

In a stand mixer, using the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites until they become stiff peaks. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the milk and vanilla bean paste. Set aside (there seems to be a pattern here!).

Going back to the butter/sugar mixture, stir in 1/3 of the milk mixture, followed by 1/3 of the flour mixture. Repeat this 2 more times (ending with the last of the flour mixture). Stir in 1/3 of the egg whites (this will help lighten the dough), then fold in the remaining egg whites. Note: don’t fold the egg whites in completely- there can still be some streaks, as you are going to be stirring the batter a little more once you add in the food coloring.

Put 2 cups of batter in a small bowl and add a few drops of red gel food coloring. Stir to combine. Repeat this step, however, using the blue gel food coloring in the 2nd bowl. Go back to the main batter bowl and make sure the egg whites are fully incorporated.

In order to make the zebra pattern, I used 3 ice cream scoops. 2 medium scoops (1 for red, 1 for blue) and a large scoop (for the main batter- white). Start with a scoop of red batter, followed by a scoop of white. A scoop of blue batter comes next, followed by another scoop of white. Now it’s back to red and we repeat this pattern. Note: the reason for doing red/white/blue/white, is to try to keep the blue and red batters from mixing and forming purple once it bakes! After every 4 scoops, gently shake the bundt pan in order to get the batter to spread out. Repeat this until you have used up all the batter, or until your bundt pan is 3/4 of the way full*. Bake in a preheated oven for 40-60 minutes, depending on how full your bundt pan is. Once a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, remove the cake from the oven and let cool for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, invert the cake onto a platter and let cool completely. Enjoy!

*Note: I did not want to over-fill my bundt pan, so I had left-over batter. I ended up using both a bundt pan and a loaf pan. Both ended up baking for 40 minutes for me. If you put all your batter in the bundt pan, your baking time will be longer than 40 minutes.

Bundt pan

Loaf pan

Photo courtesy of Nick

Made with love, not calories!

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