How to Make a Cake with Zebra Stripes on the Inside!
Today I'm going to demonstrate how to make a cake with zebra stripes on the inside! This is such a fantastic surprise-inside cake and a fun alternative to a traditional chocolate and vanilla marbled 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 zebra slices! You'll see that part in just a second.
First, let's talk batter-- You'll most often see chocolate and white zebra cakes, but for a fun twist, you can tint your batter with coloring gels to create all sorts of unique combinations of colorful stripes!
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).
We prepared the batter for each cake mix separately and found the batter to be just the right consistency. If the batter is too thick, the effect will be more difficult to achieve. If they batter is very thin, it may spread too quickly.
(*** 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 approximately 3 tablespoons or so of dutch processed cocoa powder into one of your bowls of batter to create chocolate batter.
Now, let's make a zebra cake!
We started with our two bowls of cake batter....
Then, we poured ¼ cup of vanilla batter into the middle of our 8" pan. It will spread a little bit. Then...
Measure out a ¼ cup of chocolate batter and pour it in the center of your vanilla batter.
Repeat this process, continuing with ¼ 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 and push out a little bit.
Continue the process until your pans are approximately ⅔ full. (We had a couple of cups leftover, which we used to make extra cake layers for another time.)
Look how pretty!...
This beautiful striped batter is 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?! (Find out more about reverse shell borders in our tutorial on How to Pipe with a Star Tip!)
Okay, time for the big reveal! (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! It worked! I couldn't be happier with the outcome. I LOVE these zebra print cake layers!
It's always nice to have a hidden surprise inside of the cake! If you haven't tried this method already, make sure to put it on your cake "bucket list". It's so much fun, and looks much more complicated than it actually is, which I love!
*An update~ When this tutorial was first created, the sizes of standard box mixes were larger (around 18.5 oz). Now, they are 16.5 oz. We tested the zebra cake again with the new smaller size and still had great results.
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope that you enjoyed the tutorial!
Did you know that we also have a leopard print (on the inside) cake video tutorial? It's one of our favorites! Leopard Print Cake Tutorial
Or if you are just looking for a good old fashioned Marble Cake recipe, we have just the one! It's good to have options!
Hi Mary, before putting your cake batter into the cake pans, you would add pink or green food coloring to your white cake batter until you achieve the sh color you like. I have never tinted cake batter black but I would start with a dark chocolate cake batter and add black food coloring. I think it might be difficult to achieve a black you are happy with without using quite a lot of food color.
Going to try this one for the youngests birthday. Thanks for sharing. I thought it was waaaaay more of a process.
This is fantastic. I want to do this for my nieces 5th birthday in march. I was also wondering if you could do this with cupcakes as well?
This is such an adorable idea! I was wondering if the zebra design would still work in a regular 9x13 rectangular pan?
I have been making this cake for years. Ive seen several people ask if this can be done in cupcakes, with no answers. So, I wanted to answer on that...YES, you can. Instead of 1/4 cup, use 1 T batter at a time. It will be time consuming, but they do turn out great. These make a fun cake with a nice surprise for the guests when you cut into it.
Thank you for this recipe my daughter who is turning 20 in a couple of weeks wants a zebra cake - her room is zebra print accessories with hot pink so I plan to make a hot pink frosting - Ill let you know how it all turns out - thanks again - ps glad its Duncan Hines - only cake mix I like to buy!
This is so cute! Does it have the same effect in a square cake pan?
the cake is so cutie that i made
Megan, you can do this in a square pan, the corners won't show the stripes as well as round.
Hannha, I'm glad your cake turned out great!
Making this Wednesday for a cake I'm working on next week! Can't wait for the results!
Would love to try this with a strawberry cake mix, Pillsbury is the only brand available in our area in the strawberry flavor, can adjustments be made to make this work. Love the idea. Thank you!
Hi Karla, since we made this blog entry Pillsbury and the other major brand cake mixes have decreased the amount of product in their package to 15.25 ounces. They have also changed their formulation and we think the batter is even thicker. However, I think you can still use this since that is all you have available. I would increase the water and additional 1/4 cup maybe even more, until it seems to spread out in the pan......you may need to giggle the pan a bit to help it spread. It should turn out great, good luck!