Hi everyone! Happy Friday! Okay, it is just about 15 minutes until Saturday here, but I’m still going to call this a Friday blog -:0) — Let’s celebrate by making a zebra cake!
In my last video tutorial, I demonstrated how to decorate a cake with zebra stripes–a very fun look for your safari, fashion or just plain funky themed cakes! Well, today I’ll show you how to continue the theme to the inside of the cake.
By the way, I did not invent the zebra cake. I’m not sure who did–but if you google zebra cakes, you’ll see all kinds of recipes that point to basically the same outcome–very cool looking slices :0) –You’ll see that part in just a second.
First, let’s talk batter– You’ll most often see chocolate and white zebra cakes (although it would be fun to try a hot pink and white zebra cake sometime!) –
We went the boxed cake route and bought a box of Duncan Hines Devil’s Food Cake, and a box of Duncan Hines French Vanilla. We chose these because they don’t have pudding in the mix (like Pillsbury & Betty Crocker, which can be a little thick for this project–although I love them for anything else).
While Duncan Hines batter is not too thick….it is very thin. We want a happy medium, so we prepared the batter for each cake just slightly different than the instructions on the back. Here’s what we changed–
French Vanilla Cake– We added only 1 c. water rather than the 1 1/3 c. that it calls for.
Devil’s Food- We added 1 1/4 c. water instead of the 1 1/3 cups that it calls for.
That’s it!
(*** As a side note, if you would like to try this cake with a scratch recipe, you can choose your favorite white or yellow cake recipe and then divide it approx. in half– you can stir approx 3 tablespoons or so of dutch processed cocoa powder into one of your bowls of batter to create chocolate batter.
Let’s get started!
Two bowls of batter….
We started by dropping 1/4 cup of vanilla batter into the middle of our 8″ pan. It will spread a little bit. Then…
Measure out a 1/4 cup of chocolate batter and pour it in the center of your vanilla batter.
Repeat this process, continuing with 1/4 cup scoops of alternating flavors, each flavor of batter dropped into the center of the previous circle of batter. The batter is thin enough that it does not take long at all for the batter to spread out a little bit.
Continue the process until your pans are approx 2/3 full. (We had a couple of cups leftover, which we used to make extra cake layers for another time.)
Look how pretty!…
Ready for the oven!
Well…here’s where it would have been nice of me to take a picture of the baked layers. They look exactly like the above picture, only…baked. :0) –
I assembled my fat two layer cake as I always do…the bottom layer right side up, and the top layer top side down (with buttercream in between). I’m sure that the zebra effect would look pretty no matter how you stack your layers.
After crumb coating my cake with vanilla buttercream, I used a Wilton star tip 21 (one of my faves) to do a reverse shell pattern with my medium consistency buttercream. I always love a nice reverse shell border, but I now like them even better when piped vertically! You can see that I staggered mine a bit so that neighboring lines fit nicely together. Is it just me or does my cake look like it’s wearing a snuggly buttercream sweater?! :0)
Okay, back on topic again….. it’s time to cut the cake!!! (I said a little prayer after all of that piping that the zebra stripes actually would be there when we cut into the cake!) – Whew!
Hooray! Another tutorial is complete, and I hope that you enjoyed this one! It’s always nice to have a hidden surprise within the cake— if you haven’t tried this method already, write it on your cake “bucket list” –it’s fun–and looks much more complicated than it is, which I love! Have a great weekend!
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This is awesome! My sister loves animal prints so I’m hoping to use all your ideas at her next party!
Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing!
How fun! I’ve never seen a zebra cake before but it looks great!
That is very enlightening! Thanks for sharing!
Put on the “bucket list” thanks for the awesome tutorial
I love this idea, how original, and what fun. Can’t wait to have a go!!! Thank you. :0)
Wow, this is gorgeous! Definitely adding this to my list of things to try
Looks so easy – I imagined it would be incredibly difficult to produce a cake looking like this. Thanks for the great & easy to follow tutorial 
ok Real Housewives of NJ’s Teresa Giudice is calling and asking you to make this for her next book! So cute…my daughter looked at this and said, MOM…You HAVE to make that with pink and brown stripes…MOM…you HAVE TOOOOOOOOOOOO…..FUN.
this is awesome! thanks so much for sharing ! i love it !
I love the looks of this cake! Not your typical marble cake – that’s for sure. I’ll have to try this one on my granddaughter — with zebra inside and out. She’ll have a blast with it!
You have made my day! tyanks for showing this! I have to mak a zebra cak for my nieces birthday and no I can stripe the inside as well.God Bless you!
I love it. I’m going to try it tomorrow.. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks everybody! I love reading that some of you are already planning your zebra cakes :0) ! Trisha, YES, I do think that Teresa should call me–how can we make that happen?, lol — Your daugher sounds too cute–a pink zebra cake would be the best! :0)
How do you do the reverse shell pattern? For some reason i can never get them to look right..lol I love this cake cant wait to try it! =)
So cute! I can’t wait to try this:-)
This is AMAZING!! Thank you so much for sharing…I can’t wait to try it
wow, that is so much easier than I would have thought, if I tried that without seeing this first I would have made it so much more complicated. thanks for sharing, and great pictures!
Looks great!! This is an impressive looking cake. I’ve made one too and everyone thinks that it’s just such a complicated cake to make.
Hi, I’m curious, how much buttercream frosting did it take to decorate this? I always seem to need to double or sometimes triple a frosting recipe to get all the piping I want.
Love it! Can’t wait to try it out!
Awesome!! Im gunna try this today!! I love the easy to follow instructions! And thank you for sharing this gem! How effective does this look!! WELL DONE!!
Looks great! I am definitely going to try this soon!
I’m trying it now……..wish me luck!
This is amazing!! Fantastic tutorial. You have changed my baking forever!
This is wonderful, thank you!
This is the cutest thing. I have 2 jungle themed baby shower cakes this month and will definitely try this on one of them. Thank you for sharing!
This is great, Melissa! Can’t wait to try it.You make all of the tutorials so easy to understand. Thanks again.
I love this cake and I am soooooooooo going to make it for my daughter’s birthday,she will be surprised
Do you think this could work with cupcakes too?
How cute! I will be making this for my sisters birthday. She loves zebra print
looks amazing, i’m going to make it this week for my friends baby shower. hope it turns out as awesome as this one (:
I love this cake! Will it work for a bigger rectangular pan too it the batter is layered in the same way??
I used your tutorial yesterday and had fun making the cake. I have asked my daughter to take photos when they cut it so I can see if it actually looks like stripes or merely marbled. Mine didn’t look quite as neat and circular as yours, so we’ll see.
Did this cake and it’s in the oven. I’m peaking and I see lots of vanillia with barely there chocolate stripes. I noticed my batter seemed alot thinner then the picture. Do you think this had an effect on my outcome?
I love this. Can’t wait to try it soon!
Thanks Melissa for making this look so easy. Going to try this as soon as the utility company turns my gas back on…living without power for a couple days after Hurricane Irene. I can’t wait to start baking again.
Similiar question to one above. Curious how this would translate to a 9 x13 pan? Thanks, it is an awesome technique!!
Great !!
im trying it right now
Awesome tutorial I always wondered how to make a zebra cake
What temperature and how long would you bake this cake?
oops I also meant to add, would this translate well into a tiered cake? If I were to make a 10″ and an 8″ stacked?
So awesome, love it!
Great!
can this be achieved in a sheet cake? I have a friend that wants a zebra head shaped cake for her birthday and when i saw this i figured this would be the surprise when she cut the cake!
Yes, it would be fine. I would just elongate the chocolate cake batter to fit the shape of your sheet cake pan.
What a FUN cake! Thanks for the tutorial.
I do at least 3 zebra cakes per week… this will be a nice change of pace and a surprise for the customer. Thanks for this amazing idea.
Thanks for the ideas. I am going to make this cake for my grandson’s 1st Birthday. And decorate it with the Zebra stripes on the outside………
omg you give me an amazing ideas.. every single cake you made is very beautiful am going to share the web with my sis
Love it when I find a new food blog worth subscribing to. Doubly so when it’s about baking. Your zebra cake is such a simple concept so well explained.
I can not wait to try this!!! I’m so thankful that you teach us how to do things. A big THANK YOU!
Thanks for the tutorial. I love this idea & will try it soon enough.
Great how-to. Tried it for my daughters 2nd birthday. Did hot pink and white, and while my before pans looked NOTHING like yours, I must say, for my first attempt, not to shabby! The hot pink looked awesome. Thanks again, it was a total hit!
I just tried this with my granddaughter’s 21st birthday cake. It turned out absolutely great. However, I did not change the way I put in the cake batter on the second pan. Should have but that is OK. It turned out great anyway. Thank you Melissa for the instructions on how to do the zebra inside the cake.
Trina how did you get hot pink cake? Did you color white batter with red or pink food coloring or a mixture of both. I’m wanting to try white and hot pink.
I just want to say that I have ALWAYS wanted to know how to do the zebra pattern in the cake batter. Thank you …not only for telling how to do it but showing how it was done! This was so easy to do…THANK YOU!!!
Thanks Janey–so glad that you found the tutorial! It really is much easier than it looks (which I love!) ;0) —
Thanks everybody for your nice comments! I love hearing feedback from tutorials.
LOVE zebra stripes my most favorite thing ever imma have this for my 13th birthday =] thank you soo much =]
did they leave out the egg & oil from the box directions?
Hi Leah, no, the egg and oil are as the box directions state. We just changed the water amounts.
My zebra cakes just came out of the oven. I am so excited. My daughter is having her birthday party tomorrow and it is all zebra themed. She has no idea I’m making this cake. I cannot wait to surprise her! Thanks so much for sharing!
Brandy, so happy to hear that!!! ;0) I hope your daughter has a great birthday!
Do you just alternate pouring around the first circle of batter you poured in the middle of the pan? Pour circle of white batter then smaller circle of chocolate then alternate around the first circle? I’m a little unsure. Side note; I’m actually making a sheet cake so I assume I should be making rectangles, right?
Hi Tonya–no need to pour circles of batter. You start with the first scoop of batter…then wait just a little while for the batter to spread, then pour your next scoop of batter into the center of that first scoop….wait for it to spread, and so on. You can see above where I started with the scoop of white batter, then poured the scoop of chocolate right in the center of the white scoop. It sinks and spreads and then you’re ready for the next scoop.
I’ve not tried this for a sheet cake, but I would do the same process…just more elongated scoops of batter.
How would you use this technique with cupcakes? Because they are deeper, would it get messy when trying to fill the cupcake liner up?
Hi, I haven’t tried it with cupcakes but I think the same technique could be used, but it would be very time consuming .
Wow, now that is way Awesome…would never had thought of that. Great Blog!!! Thanks so very much for sharing.
wow ..looks just awsome..will try asap. I have been baking for some time now but only for my family . Now i want to learn different types of icing n give my cakes more professional look …so happy to come across this blog …hugs
This looks amazing and difficult to make but yet so simple. Must try list! Thanks you!
I have just one question. I really want to try this method out but I seem to have lost my round pans
I have some oval ones, can I use those? Do I follow the same steps? Thank you!!!
Hi Danya, yes, same steps and you will get a nice result with oval pans .
Thank you BeBe!!! I am so excited to try this method!! I will post some pictures soon!!!
this is awesome!! thank you for sharing!! i will try this very soon!!!
This is awesome. My sister loves animal print but her favorite is zebra. Her birthday is next month and ima try this. And do decorations too. I always surprise her with something zebra. She’s gonna love it. Hopefully it’s a success, that don’t need to much process(:
Love the zebra idea. I just made myself a birthday cake and it was blue and white zebra print…super pretty and everyone loved it.
I can’t wait to try this! Thanks so much for the how to!
So, two boxes of cake mix; doesn’t that double your amount of batter? Would it not make enough batter for four 9 inch pans ?
What a fabulous idea, going to give it a try for my daughters upcoming bday
Can this be done in a square or rectangular pan?
Hi–I’ve never tried this with a square pan but it seems like it would work pretty well. For a sheet cake pan, I would guess that elongated oval dollops of batter would be the way to go.
Will these two cake batters enough a make a 6 in tier and a 8 inch tier or do I have to buy two boxes of each flavor?
I would buy two of each just in case you might need them, depending on how full you will fill your pans.
How did you make the icing look so even? Did you use a trick to guide you on how to make it in evens sizes? Thanks
Omg…love it…
this is so fun!!! my step daughter will be so surprised when we cut her bday cake!! thank you!!!
love this!!! i love animal prints – this is great.
Thank you for this great idea. My Granddaughter’s birthday is in April & she is crazy about zebra anything, I am going to make this cake for her. She will love it.
Just finished this! Well I made cupcakes! Dyed the batter HOT PINK and BLACK, with red icing! Super cute! My Daughter’s birthday party is Saturday and we are having a “Valentines Day Tea Party” and I can’t wait for someone to bite into one so I can see the outcome!
Thanks so much everybody!!! @Tamara—what a fun surprise for your daughter-she will love it!! ;0)
So I saw this at Michaels by Duff Goldmans cake product line. It was the cake mix. I guess i must have thought it would magically be zebra striped all on its own but when i saw that it just had white cake mix and chocolate cake mix and you do the process you did I felt stupid for paying a crazy amount of money for just regular old cake mix LOL. Such an awesome way to make cake
I am doing a guitar cake for my boys 1st bday party and this as the cake 
Such a fantastic idea! I love it! Hoping to earn my stripes =)
@Emily- that is so funny! Sorry that you had to pay extra for white & chocolate mix ;0) – I didn’t realize he was selling zebra cake kits! Good luck with the guitar cake!
@Hearty Appletite– Ha! ;0) — Let us know how it goes when you try it!
I made this cake last night for my friend’s birthday. I used Duncan Hines White & Devil’s food cake mixes. they both called for 1 cup of water, so I stuck with it. I literally had to scrape the mix out of the cup in order to get it into the pan, I had to spread each layer with a spoon. Other than this, the cake turned out perfect. I used homemade chocolate butter cream icing and it worked excellent. Everyone said it looked awesome and it tasted great, I was a little concerned since I made it last night that it might dry out, so I covered it with saran wrap overnight and woke up early this morning in order to ice it. Thanks for the idea!
Did this for my son’s birthday cake. He loved the look of the zebra stripes. I made it in a Lightning McQueen cake pan and it turned out cute, just more elongated stripes. Thanks for the awesome tutorial!!!
Found your recipe for the chocolate cream cheese frosting and had to try it! Felt it deserved an equally fun cake, so I made this zebra cake. It turned out great!!!
Wonderful!!
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I LOVE this idea! Will have to make it if I (hopefully) win the KitchenAid Mixer Giveaway! I totally LOVE me some Zebra & Leopard stuff, so this really stuck out when I saw it! 2 cute & creative! ;D
Is this cake dense enough for a stacked cake (6 and 10″)?