Monday, April 20, 2015

Three Color Zebra Cake

I made a zebra cake again, but this time using some cooking dye too and a new recipe for the batter:
Ingredients:
  • 2 eggs
  • 180 ml milk
  • 50 g butter
  • 220 g sugar
  • 250 g flour
  • 10 g baking powder
  • cocoa, red cooking dye


The most crucial moment when making zebra cake is the equal density of the three color batters. The cooking dye adds no density to the batter, so you don't have to worry about it, but cocoa makes the batter much thicker, so you have to add some milk to equalize the density. And that's the tricky part, because, I suppose, you wouldn't use any special instrumentation to measure the density of the batters other than your own eyes and other senses and that might not always produce correct readings. My cocoa batter turned heavier than the rest and the cake is not perfect - in the course of the baking  the cocoa sank to the bottom of the dish. But it was still very delicious, nevertheless :) And my son even thought this distribution of the colors - brown at the bottom and white and pink at the top was intentional and was amazed by my mastery. LOL :)))






Last night I weaved in all ends and declared my second Windsor cardi a Finished Object. In the end I knitted it with the same yarn - Zettle Nadine, alternating the three skeins for equal distribution of the the three shades of teal. I also changed the pattern, knitting the sleeves separately, instead of raglan. The fit is excellent and Gaby hurried to wear it to school today, pretty pleased to have a new cardigan. Hope to take a few modeled pictures soon.


Now I'm sampling the second turquoise yarn. It is thinner than Zettle and I didn't  like it for the very lacy pattern of Windsor. But I think it will make a decent Jirachi. I want to turn the lace pattern into a summer cardigan with 3/4 sleeves and fitted look, much like my favourite Cobalt. Tonight I'll try to figure out if I prefer moss stitch for the bottom, neck and button bands or 1x1 or 2x2 rib. And then will follow the numerous calculations. I wish I was more organized and kept track of my knitting notes or, for that matter, kept any knitting notes that would make sense after I've forgotten the pattern and not just some obscure digits on a scrap of paper :)))


1 comment:

  1. These teals are wonderful. I wish I could steal your daughter's Cardigan. Bravo on the zebra cake! I love how you broke it down into science and I love the final effect.

    ReplyDelete