Zebra Cake

Zebra Cake.

 Mmmm. You barely even need a recipe for this. You start with a box of white cake mix. I made the mix substituting applesauce for the oil and one of the eggs (this keeps it moister and denser and makes the texture more "homemade" instead of having that unmistakable boxed mix flavor and texture, and it also makes it lower fat). This is a story for another day, but you can really play with cake mixes as much as you want--substituting water, pop (not diet though, it turns bitter in the oven), applesauce, yogurt, pudding, anything you want for any of the liquids in the cake mix, and it will still turn out. It's actually kind of amazing how flexible those mixes are.

Once your batter is made, divide it into two bowls and add a square of melted unsweetened chocolate (and a few scoops of cocoa powder if it's still not dark enough) to one of the bowls. Then pour into a bundt pan, alternating batters, and bake as directed on the box.

Voila! Unfortunately, we didn't get a shot of the inside since we served this at dinner with some friends and it would have been weird to make them wait while we took a picture. Oh, and I also made a caramel glaze to top it off with. Note to self: next time let the glaze cool more so it won't just slide down the sides of the cake and make a big puddle (the picture above is after the cleanup of that mess). Also, I'm thinking next time it might be good to poke a few holes in the cake to let the glaze run inside--the bottom of the cake that was sitting in the glaze puddle was totally the yummiest part.

Definitely an easy cake with enough of a wow factor to serve to guests. I will make this again for sure!