Eggless Butterless Marble Cake / Zebra Cake

Take 1 cup curd in a bowl. Beat it and add baking powder and baking soda to it. Stir well and keep aside for 10 minutes. Meanwhile preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes. Also grease a 8" cake pan with butter or line it with a parchment paper.

Sieve the whole wheat flour twice and keep aside.

The curd should turn frothy in 10 minutes. Add powdered sugar to it. Mix well.

To this mixture add vanilla extract and oil. Keep stirring gently to mix everything nicely.

Slowly add the sieved whole wheat flour to the wet ingredients little at a time and blend well with a spatula or wire whisker. Take care not to over beat the batter.

Pour half of this batter into another bowl. Now we have two bowls with vanilla batter ( light batter). To one of the batter add sieved coco powder and blend well. If the batter appears thick , add little milk and adjust its consistency to match our light batter.

Take 2 tablespoon of light batter and pour it in the centre of the greased cake pan. Tap gently so that the layer spreads. Now take 2 tablespoon of dark batter and add it to the centre of the light batter. Tap gain gently and let it spread too.

Continue this process till you finish both the batters to get enough light and dark circles. The batter spreads in layers and reaches the circumference of the pan. We can see a lovely pattern of alternate light and dark batter. This is the zebra pattern. You can right away transfer the cake pan to a preheated oven at this stage and bake it for 30-35 minutes to get a lovely zebra cake.

Follow this step if you wish to get a flower pattern on the cake as seen in the final image. Take a toothpick and starting from the centre of the cake pan strike a straight line towards the edge. Make around. 8 equally spaced straight lines as shown in the figure.

Similarly make lines in between those lines starting from the edge to the centre of the cake pan. ( Now the toothpick will move in the opposite direction ). This gives a beautiful flower pattern.

Place the cake pan in a preheated oven and bake the cake at 180 degree Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30-35 minutes.

Keep a watch on the cake after 28 minutes as the temperature may vary from oven to oven .( I have baked this cake in a microwave with convection mode. To set the temperature press on the convection button. We can see temperature from 110 displayed. By reading that button repeatedly you can get the desired temperature. Now press start and set the time . Refer to your oven booklet if you have any doubt regarding setting temperature and time on the oven. ) Let the cake remain in the oven for 5 minutes before you take it out. To check the doneness of the cake , insert a toothpick in the center of the cake. If it comes out clean , the cake is properly baked. If it has batter on it , bake the cake for another 4-5 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool down completely before flipping it. Loosen the edges by running a knife through the edges of the cake pan. Flip the cake carefully , peel the butter paper and cut the cake into desired shapes.

Enjoy the delightful cake with your loved ones either plain or with cup of tea or coffee. Kids can have it with glass of milk.