Tiger Cake- Finnish Tiikerikkakku

I have no idea how this works.... you just layer in the batter and you get a tiger cake!?!  The whole time I was making it, I was thinking "this better work, or I am going to be really pissed off"! Whew, luckily it turned out just fine! This cake is moist and dense like pound cake, with lots of great orange and chocolate flavor, and I am going to make this one again. 

There are some darling Zebra and Tiger pies & cakes out there, but they are really just marbled cake, or pie with a twist. I was surfing around online looking at some of the recipes and this one from Finland came up... how can you resist a cake called Tiikerikkakku?  I'm not sure how to say that, but I bet it sounds something like  "tee-ker-kaka-koo".  I'm no linguistist, but which I am pretty darn sure that means TIGER CAKE!! My husband is half Finnish and the kids like to say they are Finnish too... I'd like to point out that they are probably more German if you take the German on both sides of their parent's heritage... but you try convincing them!

Makes one bundt cake, or one large loaf pan
Ingredients:

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

5 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. vanilla

2 Tbsp Orange zest
1 orange, juiced
1 tsp. salt

3 Tbsp. dark cocoa

Preheat oven to 350º. Grease and flour a bundt pan, or 1 large loaf pan.

Beat butter and sugar together until creamy. Stir in vanilla, orange zest and orange juice. Sift together flour and baking powder. Alternatively, add eggs and flour to the batter until all are combined.  Place 1/2 of cake batter into separate mixing bowl; stir in cocoa.  

Spread 1/3 of chocolate batter evenly in bottom of your pan.

Gently dribble half of orange batter on top with a spoon or frosting bag.

Repeat layers until you are out of batter.

Bake on center rack of oven for 1 hour for the bundt cake, a large loaf will take about 1 hour 20 minutes.

Every slice has a little different pattern, this was SO much fun to make, and cut!

Look at the picture below... is it just me, or can you see a smiling Panda face???

I can't wait to serve it to someone now... anyone want to come over for coffee and cake?