It is sunny and warm in LA!! We are in LA again for a week of filming and workshops at YouTube Space LA, and it has been so nice to escape the dreary winter weather we’d been having up in Canada. It feels like paradise right now . . . short sleeves, bare legs . . . American Target. Life is good! All I need now is a sprinkle covered cupcake and it would be complete. As I alluded to last post, it’s not all happiness right now, my friend on-screen and off, Beth from the YouTube channel CookingandCrafting, is going through some very challenging times with a sick family member. If you know Beth you will know how close she is with her family. They need your help. If you can donate any amount, please consider sending it to her brother Scott to help him on his road to recovery. The link to the medical fundraiser is here- http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/help-scott-get-better-/133503.
I’ve had a day to reconnect with YouTube colleagues who are now my friends I’m happy to say. It has been so exciting to be a part of something that has had this much time to develop real relationships. I think that if this had been a one week program instead of the 6 month/3 week program that it is, we definitely wouldn’t have been able to learn so much from each other. I’ll get to post more about that later as the week goes on! I’m even going to get to meet a real life cyber friend on Thursday! I’ve invited Miki from Miki’s Pantry to come and join us at our wrap party! She’s the soothing voice behind the YouTube channel Miki’s Pantry. We’re bound to like each other in person as we’ve been having conversation via computers since 2011 . I’ll post more about that later too. Anyway, that’s the update that is happening in LA . . . so . . . on to the cake!
I set out to make this cake in traditional black and white zebra pattern, but while I was practicing version one (there’s usually 3-4 versions of a cake prior to a video) something about it screamed PINK PINK PINK to me! The black and white looked too, well, black and white.
I started with putting a pink border around the outside. Yep, that definitely added the punch of colour I was looking for, but it still wasn’t PINK enough. When I sliced into the cake to see how the stripe effect worked out, I realized THAT was it!! I had to somehow get pink in the middle too! So I started baking version two . . . by the time it was ready for filming I had version three mastered as well.
Pink Zebra Cake
Ingredients:
2 ½ cups all purpose flour (300 g)
2 cups sugar (400 g)
¾ cups vegetable oil (180 mL)
1 teaspoon vanilla (5 mL)
2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder (~11 mL)
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 cup milk (240 mL)
white, pink, and black gel paste
vanilla buttercream
black fondant
pink buttercream
Wilton tip 1A
*white colouring is optional if you wish to have a lighter batter, you can use the batter as is
*you may also choose to omit the pink portion, and just use it as black
Procedure:
Preheat oven to 350F/170F. In the bowl of a stand mixer combine, flour, sugar, baking powder, vegetable oil and vanilla on low/medium until ingredients are mixed together. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing on low in between additions. Slowly add the milk while the mixer on and mix until all ingredients are completely combined. Divide batter into three different bowls with one bowl having half of the batter and the other two have a quarter each. Colour the large bowl with white colouring, and the smaller two with black and pink respectively. Mix colouring until no light streaks remain. Spray two 8” pans with non-stick spray and line bottom with parchment/baking/wax paper. Place four tablespoons of white batter into the center of each pan. Then, directly into the middle of the white batter, place two tablespoons of black batter. Directly into the centre of the black batter, place two tablespoons of pink batter. Repeat white/black/pink batter additions until all the batter is used up or pans are ⅔ full. Place pans into oven and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, remove from pan, and cool completely on a wire wrack.
Once cake is cooled, level, stack and cover in white buttercream. To cut the fondant pieces, roll fondant out very thinly and using a rolling cutter (pizza or pastry) slice long, narrow stripes and arrange on white cake as desired. To finish the cake off, using the pink buttercream with Wilton 1A tip, pipe a small beaded border along the bottom of the cake.
I made this cake for my daughters birthday, all the kids and adults loved it!! Some kids even asked if I could make them one for their birthday!! Thanks for sharing this recipe!!
Hi,
I just tried making this cake and I found the batter very runny. The edges have now mixed but I’ll see what the cake is like when it’s finished baking. Just a question, because I followed the recipe exactly (I always weigh my ingredients): what size eggs do you use? I use large eggs, would you be able to add in the weight of the eggs you use? Because this is the only thing I can think of that would account for the batter being runny. Thanks
Hi there, the cake needs to be runny in order for the stripes to flow. The edges of mine also blended together so don’t worry too much about it. Hope it turns out for you!
Why don
t cing colors come with white coloring?
They do…Americolor sells white colouring.
I have made this cake at sea level but now live at high altitude (6500 ft or so). DO you have suggestions how to adjust this recipe so it will turn out? Thanks
Hi There,
with the holidays getting close I want to get a head start. Can you make the cakes in advance and freeze them prior to decorating? I wanted to freeze them so I can then then defrost and decorate the day I require them.
Michael
Yes, definitely! Make sure you wrap them in plastic.
I made the cake today for my bday and it looks beautiful txs for the ideas.
Hi! Loved the look of this cake/recipe and me and 2 experienced bakers have just baked and both the cake layers have come out very thin indeed, and we thought the mixture was quite sloppy in comparison to your tutorial….We took the USA recipe ingredient of ‘general purpose flour’ to mean ‘plain flour’, is this correct? Is there anything else we may have done wrong that has made the layers so thin? Many thanks! Katie
All purpose flour and plain flour should be the same thing, but unfortunately since I’m not in your country, so I can’t know for sure. If you followed the recipe exactly, there shouldn’t have been any problems with the cake. It’s supposed to be thin as the cake batter needs to be able to run like the zebra print requires. The best thing I can suggest is trying it again. Hope you have better luck next time.
Can this same pattern be made in a square 9 by 13 pan.
You can, but you might want to make two separate piles of batter in the pan, instead of just one.
Is there anyway you can use a cake mix for this? And if so, would I use two cake mixes for two cakes or just one and split it in half for two cakes?
Many thanks and thank you for sharing your creativity!
Kelly
You’ll have to experiment if you want to use cake mixes. Good luck!
Hi i would like to make this but i have no clue to how to convert the messurements in to uk mesirements. any help would be great thanks
http://cookiescupcakesandcardio.com/?page_id=3348
Hi,
i want to do the cake for my girl´s 3 Birthday.
I’m from Germany, agree that Dimensions in brackets? or they can give me a table, so that I can convert it right?
Thank you.
Jenny
Here is the conversion link http://cookiescupcakesandcardio.com/?page_id=3348
Thank you 😉
I want to do this pattern as a bottom tier and I was wondering if it will rise enough in a deep square 8″ pan?
You’ll have to try and find out. Good luck!
Thank you for writing the European measures! This cake will be baked in Berlin on Wednesday….my big girl is having birthday! Weeehooo! Really nice!
Hi — do you think it would be possible to create the black stripe by adding cocoa powder for a chocolate flavor (the color would be brown rather than black, I know)? Or would this change the consistency of the batter too much for the striping to work properly? Thanks!
Getting the batter to stripe properly is the hardest part, so without having tried your idea, I would imagine it might make the dark layer to thick to spread?? If you try it, let me know how it works out.
Bethany although i see you commented a few days ago I still thought i’d share. I tried your idea first but couldn’t make it work, but then I managed to make the cake with cacaostripes a while back. It’s a bit of a hassle because I made the black batter completely separate and i used 4:2:1 spoons white:black:pink so had to separate the ingredients into 2/7th for the black and 5/7th for the rest, but it came out really great! I just subsituted 2 tablespoons of cocoa for 2 tablespoons of flour in the black batter and kept the rest the same (including black coloring). The cake came out nicely with a subtle chocolate flavour throughout. You cannot taste the difference between the stripes and rest, it’s all light chocolaty. Try at your own risk though 🙂
Hi, I was wondering if you could advise a good make/brand of food colouring? Your black batter is really dark, everything I’ve tried comes out a dark grey colour? I have used the Wilton concentrate gel pot & Dr. oetker squeezey gels, but still no luck. (But the Wilton pink/rose worked really well)
Thank you.
I use Americolor gel paste.
do you by chance have the recipe to making this cake but three tear I was wanting a three tear
for my daughter’s birthday but not sure how much I would need ingredients wise for that big
You will just need to adjust the recipe times the amount of batter you need.
Hi. I made this beautiful cake for a baby shower. Everything was right on. Your instructions were very good. Your recipe was excellent. I made a blue one for baby boy rather than pink in the recipe. Wanted to say a big thanks for being my guide and teacher for this cake. Please keep giving us more inspiration.
One general question, how to avoid the cake doming in the baking process?
Hi and hello
I hope you are ok I love watching your clips I absolutly love this zebra cake I wanted to make this cake for my sister and wondered about how much of all the things I need for a 10
inch cake please if you could reply I would be very very grateful thanks for uploading your videos they are truly awesome
Take care
Hi! I was so excited to try and make your cake! It’s beautiful!! But sadly result turned out a blended/marbled (delicious!) mess. I was watching it in the oven while it cooked and I noticed that the blending started from the sides, and as the heat penetrated further into the center, the more the colours blended together. Do you use those bake- even strips that you put around the tin? I’m wondering if that may help next time? Also, I didn’t divide the mixture between two pan like you said. I’m wondering if too many layers of colour also made them blend?
Thankyou!
Can’t wait to try it again! 😀
There is too much batter to bake this cake in one pan, so that is likely your problem. Sometimes I use the bake even strips, but I didn’t with this cake. You can try it though, and maybe it will help you out.
Making a spinoff of pigs in mud cake for my brother tomorrow- Unicorns in rainbows! I’m using the zebra cake method to make the cake, but with blue, red, and green, so when the cake gets cut it’s a rainbow inside too! :3
Hello!
I have a few simple questions! 🙂
1. How long would you say dose this cake stay moist with no buttercream. Debating on when to make this for my daughters birthday. (we will be traveling ect so need to make it in advance) … Also best way to keep moist? Plastic wrap?
2. I’m using a Wilton hello kitty cake pan, would you say to just fill it up as much as possible and bake as you recommend?
3. Have you ever used Cocoa in the zebra? If I would do this would you suggest adding milk/reducing flour in the black portion? (Of course if it’s flour I would have to do this part seperatly which is fine)
4. Have you ever used champagne as the liquid in this recipie? If so how was the outcome?
Thanks a bunch!
If you’re not covering the cake, you need to wrap it in plastic wrap and keep it frozen until you do. You will have to adjust your baking time with the size of the cake pan (longer probably). I’ve never used cocoa for the black. Haven’t used champagne in this recipe, but I have here: http://cookiescupcakesandcardio.com/?p=3461