It’s pink. It’s got black stripes. Here’s a clue: there’s a zebra standing on it! It’s a Pink Zebra Cake!
I recently got a commission to do a cake for a 60th birthday girl. The person who asked me to do the cake is an old friend of mine and she had specific ideas for the theme of the cake, as she did when her husband turned 60 a few years ago. For him, I made the Piano Man Cake.
For this Pink Zebra Cake, the zebra theme goes back to the time the birthday girl was a kid and her brother (the piano man) made up a rhyme that he used to tease her silly with. The rhyme had the phrase Debra the Zebra in it and just like the childhood red trousers on the piano man, the zebra had to be in on the fun! Besides that, Debra is also quite the girly girl and loves to paint and leads a rather fun and glitzy life. How to bring it all together? Not to worry, just another day at the office!
While we were chatting about the cake, I knew immediately what sort of cake I was going to make, the pink and the zebra stripes were a bit of a no brainer, it was the finishing touches that needed some planning and thinking. But luckily…
Some years ago, I’d made a triple tiered birthday cake for a 90 year old that incorporated her love of gardening and painting. So I fell back on the old miniature easel on a cake trick but this time got the help of the little artist in the house, my 12 year old. She drew the zebra on the easel for me because I cannot draw to save my life. Or so I claim! You’ll find a range of cakes that I’ve made over the years and remembered to photograph (!) on the Cake Decorating Page.
How to make the Pink Zebra Cake
Everything you need is on the Cake Decorating Page, you can either cover the cake with a Pink Buttercream Icing (as I did here) or Pink Fondant or Sugarpaste. Pink fondant will give a smoother finish but that’s a whole lot of sugarpaste to be eaten!
I suggest that you read the following pages, especially if you are new to cake decorating:
How to make Fondant/Sugarpaste at home
Icing and Filling a Cake with Buttercream Icing
How to Cover a Cake with Fondant or Sugarpaste Icing
What you will need to make the Pink Zebra Cake
But this time, before filling the cake tin, we’ll be dividing the batter into 3 and colouring one pink and the other black. The darker and the more concentrated your black colouring the better.
We’ll be layering the batter into the cake tin, dropping a large spoonful into the middle; one, exactly on top of the other in this order: plain batter, black, pink. As you can see, it’s not an exact science, so don’t worry about overlaps.
We will colour this pink for inside and out. If you are covering the cake with pink fondant, then you’ll only need half the amount of buttercream, for the filling, and the crumb coat.
Pink Fondant or Sugarpaste Icing
You’ll need 500g of this to cover an 8″/20cm cake. Unless you really, really love making everything at home, use a shop bought fondant/sugarpaste to make it easier on yourself!
Smooth Raspberry or Strawberry Jam
A small amount, about half a cup, slightly warmed up so it’ll spread easily.
Black Fondant/Sugarpaste Icing
For the black stripes.
Props – optional
These are optional, the cake looks perfect unadorned, with just the stripes but you could customise accordingly. In this instance, I have a miniature easel, a sugarpaste zebra, a miniature sugarpaste artist palette and brush and a sugarpaste lady lounging with a drink in hand.
Black Cake Board
1 x Piping Bag
1 x Piping Nozzle – star or regular tube
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- Rainbow Cake Batter
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- Rainbow Zebra Cake, Halved
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- Crumb Coat On
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- Second Buttercream Coat
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- Cutting the Fondant/Sugarpaste
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- Zebra Stripes On
Pink Zebra Cake
Ingredients
- 1 x Madeira Cake
- 1 x pink Buttercream Icing
- 180g/6oz raspberry jam, no bits
- 250g/about 8oz black fondant/sugarpaste
- 1 9″/22cm black cake board
- Props as mentioned above
Instructions
- Cut the cake in half and fill it up.
- Apply a layer of pink icing all over the cake as a crumb coat.
Covering the cake with Fondant/Sugarpaste Icing
- Roll out the pink fondant/sugarpaste icing to about 4mm thick and cover the cake. Please read the page on how to do this, link above.
Covering the cake with only Buttercream Icing
- After applying the crumb coat, leave in a cool place for the icing to crust, about 30 minutes. I like to place mine in the fridge for 15-20 minutes, especially on a warm day.
- Apply the second coat of pink buttercream icing.
- While waiting, roll out the black icing fairly thinly, and cut into stripes, as you can see in the picture. This can be done with a pizza cutter or a sharp knife.
- The stripes don’t want to be too long, cut some fairly short, to fill in gaps between linger stripes, as you can see in the picture.
- If you’ve cut your stripes too long, you can easily just think and shorten them.
- Place the longer stripes on the cake, starting from the base of the cake and ending with the pointy ends in the middle.
- Fill in any gaps with shorter and thinner stripes.
- Finally, pipe pink buttercream icing all around the base of the cake. You can use any nozzle for this, creating any shape: beads, using just a regular nozzle, stars, rope, that’s up to you.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 15-20 small portions
The publ zebra cake looks fun to do and more fun to eat. Such creative imagination and hands.
This cake is adorable! Great job!
Awww that cake looks so cute! I love the black and pink combination too! Thanks for sharing!
What a cute cake. I’ve always wanted to learn how to bake cakes.. never had a lot of support or encouragement though and always gave up.
Thank you! I hope you do one day, in fact, no time like the present!
These cakes you made looked so awesome! I love making my homemade cakes at home, it saves my money from purchasing the cakes in a grocery store.
You’re creative! How I wish I am that creative too. But I can bake. Haha.
You sure are talented at designing cakes. I think the pink zebra cake is awesome. I wouldn’t mind that one on my next birthday.
hahaha awesomeness! my friend Goose from SendCake films will love this post! such amazing cakes here. Cant wait to share it with him.
You are so talented. I totally love all the designs you’ve created 🙂
This is absolutely adorable. I am not quote sure that even with this step by step that I would be able to pull it off. Love it though!
Such a pretty cake! I think it is easy to do. I really like to learn more about baking and decorating so I think your posts is a good start. Thanks for sharing!
This is absolutely a cute cake. I bet my cousins would love this
Wow. These cakes look so much better than the birthday cakes of years ago. I am sure they taste just as good as they look. I will share this post with my sister. She’s the cake guru in the family.
What an awesome cake! I love doing stuff like this, but I use boxed cakes!
My sister makes cakes and NEEDS to make this one for me! This is so gorgeous! Thanks for sharing!
I made a zebra cake once before. I did the pink one with black stripes. It was actually really easy to make too. It turned out great as well.
You are super ultra talented! I am beyond impressed with this beautiful cake!
This is so cute and amazing. Thanks for teaching us with it!
This is brilliant! I’m sure my girl friends would love to have a cake like this in one of our gatherings! Thanks so much for the tutorial, I hope I can make it look this good!
wow, how cool are these. My sister in law makes cakes, I’ll have to share these ones with her.
I’ve seen these cakes all over the Internet and TV, and I’ve always been intrigued by them because they’re so unique. I don’t think I could make them though haha I don’t have the patience!
I’m not sure if I can pull off such a lovely looking cake but it would be nice to try at least. I think this is amazing and it’s perfect for parties or as a gift for a friend!
Awww, such a cute cake!! My sister would loves it.
This zebra cake looks epic, it would be wonderful for my friends sister who is obsessed with Zebras.
you are very talented my mother decorated cakes before fondant was popular she could do a lot with icing.
I like the zebra design cake, so unique and colorful. When I was a kid I wanted to learn how to decorate cakes and until now I don’t know how haha.
You are so talented! I have zero cake decorating skills and don’t see myself developing them any time soon, but I would love to be able to do something like this.
My husband bought a zebra cake for my last birthday, it was awesome and I was wondering how to make it myself! thanks for the post
brilliantly done!!I bake cakes alot but I am a total beginner when it comes to cake decoration.This post of yours is a great tutorial. I will go through the other links for sure:) You are truly a super talented lady:)
Aww, thank you so much, Shubha, I really appreciate that. It’s more of a hobby than anything else!