It's called "Zebra Cake", for reasons which will be obvious when you look at the pictures.
There really isn't a "recipe" per se, since I used boxed cake mixes. It's really just a set of instructions. If you really want to go from scratch (and I'm going to try this someday), you could do that instead.
Zebra Cake
2x 12" Dutch Ovens (I actually had to borrow one, since my two deep 12" dutch ovens are currently out on loan).
8-9 coals below each oven
15-16 coals above each oven
Begin by lighting up the coals and letting them start, then mixing up a bowl of chocolate cake mix according to its directions. After that, mix up a bowl of white cake mix according to its directions.

I took both dutch ovens out and set them on the coals, as I set out above. They both only cooked about 35 minutes until I was able to do the toothpick test with each one. I pulled them off the coals and brought them inside.

This was all last night. I wasn't sure how to handle them at this point, but my wonderful wife clued me in. I wrapped them in aluminum foil and put them in our big freezer.
The next morning, I got them out, and opened up a tub of white vanilla frosting, and dark chocolate frosting. I laid down some stripes on the top of one cake, then set the other cake right on top of it (without the foamcore, of course). Then I laid some stripes in frosting all over the now layered cake. When I do this next time, I'll do all the white frosting first. I did the chocolate first this time, and the frosting knife tended to pick up the chocolate and "brown up" the white frosting.

It was quite a hit at the party. I often got that reaction I'm looking for, you know, that "You did that in a dutch oven?" Really, though, it's much simpler than it looks. You mix the mixes, bake the cake, and then stack it and decorate it. Here in this final picture, you can see the marbling in the cake itself.
Really, sometimes it's in the cooking, and sometimes it's in the presentation.
We called it marble cake in the Navy.
ReplyDeleteI love it-
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to have missed your party- I really wanted to attend.
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