Eggless Orange-Chocolate zebra cake

 Zebra cakes are never out of fashion are they? How about a twist to the original zebra cakes instead of Vanilla and Chocolate? Well here is the Orange-chocolate zebra cake and it is eggless too. The only  with this is, that we need to make the two batters separately unlike the original zebra cake, where we mix the batter for both layers together and then add cocoa to a portion of the batter. I picked this up from Aparna's blog. The reason I made this was to test out the effectiveness of my new convection microwave oven. I wanted simple, no-fuss proven recipe, and one that I am familiar with, with respect to the structure of the cake and the crust. This seemed a perfect fit to my requirements.

Ingredients:
For the orange batter:
Flour - 1 1/4 cup
Sugar - 2/3 cup
Orange juice - 2/3 cup + 1/3 cup
Oil - 4 tbsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Orange essence - 1/2 tsp
Vinegar - 1 tsp

For the chocolate batter:
Flour - 1 1/4 cup
Cocoa - 2 tbsp
Sugar - 2/3cup
Milk - 2/3 cup
Oil - 4 tbsp
Vinegar - 3 tsp
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Bbaking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp 

Method: 
In a large bowl, add all the ingredients for the orange batter and mix well. In another large bowl mix all the ingredients of the chocolate batter. 
I used freshly squeezed orange juice, from kinnow oranges. I added the extra 1/3 cup, as I felt the orange batter was a little too thick. 


Butter and flour an 8" cake tin. I lined the pan with parchment paper. Starting with the chocolate batter, use a large spoon to deposit a spoonful of batter in the middle of the pan. Do not attempt to spread the batter. Use another large spoon and deposit a spoonful of orange batter in the middle of the pan, over the chocolate batter. The batter will start spreading. Keep alternating between the orange and chocolate batters, till both are consumed. 

Bake at 190 degress C in a preheated oven for 45 mins to 60 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes. Invert the cake onto a wire rack and let it cool down completely before slicing in wedges. 

Verdict: The texture came out good. The layers turned out very well. The cake was well baked in the prescribed time and temperature. So I concluded that the convection microwave oven is working alright. Yippee! More bakes to come from the oven with love... stay tuned!