Another Stolen Recipe: Steamed Zebra Cake

Once again I was cruising through other blogs, bookmarking some, commenting on all, reading lots and I landed on Indonesian in Turkey. I know nothing about ElCitra other than the fact that I have an awful lot of the recipe pages bookmarked. The minute I saw the Steamed Zebra Cake I was in love and incredibly curious. A steamed cake? Never heard of such a thing.

Of course, that meant that I had to try it. What better time to do that than when expecting a dozen or so friends over for a nice sedate New Year's get together. They already know to come expecting some kind of culinary experiment on the table.

Even stranger than the fact that this cake is steamed is that it contains no egg yolks or butter. Do you see this cake? It's fluffy, moist, beautiful. No butter. It's not even New Year's yet. The recipe is very straightforward. About ten egg whites get beaten until stiff along with sugar, salt, lemon juice and vanilla (the recipe calls for powdered vanilla, which I'm assuming is available in Turkey; I used a teaspoon of vanilla extract that I whipped up with the egg whites).

A mixture of flour and baking powder is folded into the thick egg white mixture, then olive oil. If you have it, go without the extra virgin version since that has a stronger flavor than regular pressed olive oil. Once the flour and oil are incorporated, separate the "dough" in half. Add cocoa powder to one half and mix it in well.

Once all that is done, the two batters get poured into a cake pan in alternating layers. If you look at the difference between my cake and ElCitra's, you'll see the confidence in preparation there as opposed to my more careful layering. The original version is so much more cool and zebra stripish than mine (just wait til I make it again though).

The last step is to steam the cake. This was my main concern since I don't have a cake steamer or know what one is. I tried to find a good picture or video on google but came up empty (I was also rushed for time), so I punted. I have a very large high-sided skillet with a nice domed lid. I put an inch or so of water in it and a round steamer tray from my pressure cooker in the bottom. If you don't have that, metal cookie cutters would work just as well. You just need something that keeps the cake out of the water but allows the water to come up about an inch or so.

The cake went on the tray, the lid went on and the skillet simmered for 15 minutes. I inserted a toothpick, which came out clean so I took the cake out and let it sit on a rack for about 10 minutes and then inverted it onto a plate, at which time I saw that the bottom of the cake was absolutely raw and liquidy. "Huh," I said, causing Hubby to depart the room rapidly. He knows that "huh" is rarely a good thing.

The beauty of this cake is that I couldn't mess it up. I put the cake back in the pan, liquidy side up, put the pan back in the skillet and let it simmer for another 10 minutes. When I removed the cake, I re-inverted it so the top was showing and the now-cooked bottom was definitely on the bottom and breathed a sigh of relief.

It's an incredibly cool cake. I love the fact that the oven's not used at all. I love the spongy texture (Dudette calls it squishy). All three of us loved the flavor. This is definitely a keeper.

Head over to Indonesian In Turkey and get the recipe for the Steamed Zebra Cake. Tell ElCitra that I sent you.