Striped Zebra Cake
The idea of a Striped Zebra Cake came to mind after a few moments of brainstorming on what bucket list recipe to make. I’ve become confident enough to tackle most any dessert, candy or bread so here’s my first attemp!
Unfortunately, my baked zebra cake looks more like a marbled horse cake. Pretty and tasty, yes, but the distinct markings were lacking!
Striped Zebra Cake
This striped zebra cake recipe was on my New Year’s Bucket List. I’ve baked nearly everything on my bucket list over the past two years: homemade puff pastry, homemade croissants, brioche, macarons. Through blogging, I’ve become confident enough to tackle most any dessert, candy or bread…so it took a few moments of brainstorming before a zebra cake came to mind. But some things are just not meant to be!
How to Make a Zebra Cake
You’ve all seen the images on Pinterest and food porn sites…show stopping striped zebra cakes. Their distinctive stripes of vanilla and chocolate definitely resemble a zebra’s coat, and I wanted to make my own. Reviews of the zebra cake recipes fell short on taste, so that was a priority. I used all butter, upped the flavorings, anything to make this cake’s flavor as impressive as its looks.
Well, all went fine. I made the batter and painstakingly alternated dollops of it in my prepared pan. It cracked a little when baked, this zebra cake smelled delicious. BUT, when I cut into it, the interior was barely marbled, let alone striped. And I tried it TWICE.
So this zebra cake come horse cake was totally moist and yummy, just not zebra-ish… but perfect for my daughter who does not like the same rich, intensely chocolate desserts as her brothers and dad. So I’m putting this zebra cake recipe aside for now. I can check it off my bucket list, can’t I????
How to Make a Zebra Cake
You’ve all seen the images on Pinterest and food porn sites…show stopping striped zebra cakes. Their distinctive stripes of vanilla and chocolate definitely resemble a zebra’s coat, and I wanted to make my own. Reviews of the zebra cake recipes fell short on taste, so that was a priority. I used all butter, upped the flavorings, anything to make this cake’s flavor as impressive as its looks.
Well, all went fine. I made the batter and painstakingly alternated dollops of it in my prepared pan. It cracked a little when baked, this zebra cake smelled delicious. BUT, when I cut into it, the interior was barely marbled, let alone striped. And I tried it TWICE.
So this zebra cake come horse cake was totally moist and yummy, just not zebra-ish… but perfect for my daughter who does not like the same rich, intensely chocolate desserts as her brothers and dad. So I’m putting this zebra cake recipe aside for now. I can check it off my bucket list, can’t I????
Update after a success:
The layering of the batter below is spot on. But it ended up the problem with my recipe was easily remedied!
PRO-Tip: Make sure your cake batter is quite thick. That will help prevent the “stripes” from merging together. Here are my Mini Zebra Bundt Cakes to see my eventual success in making a striped zebra cake recipe!
These both look promising, don’t they????
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Zebra Cake
A striped chocolate and vanilla cake made to resemble a zebra!
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups cake flour plus 3 tablespoons to thicken up vanilla batter
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 eggs (at room temperature)
- 1 cup 2 sticks butter, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 teaspoons vanilla
- 1/8 teaspoon almond extract
- 3 tablespoons Dutch process cocoa powder
- 1 cup whole milk
Instructions
- Grease 8 or 9 inch cake pan. Line bottom with parchment and grease the top of the paper. Set aside.
- Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well till incorporated. Add vanilla and almond extracts.
- Alternately add the flour mixture and milk, starting and ending with the flour. Mix till just incorporated.
- Divide batter in half. Add cocoa to one bowl of batter and mix till combined. You may add 3 tablespoons of flour to the plain batter if the consistency is too runny.
- Put contents of one bowl into a gallon zip-lock bag, remove excess air and seal. Repeat with other bowl of batter. Snip off one corner of each bag in order to pipe batter.
- Starting with white batter, pipe approximately 2 tablespoons in the middle of the pan (the smaller the amount, the thinner the stripes will be). Then pipe the same amount of chocolate batter right onto the middle of the white batter. Repeat with white batter, then chocolate, etc. until all the batter is gone. Or you can just alternate spoonfuls of batter. Work quickly.
- Bake for 35-45 minutes or till toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes then remove from pan to cooling rack.
Notes
Adapted from a variety of recipes including my friend (Lisa, of Parsley, Sage and Sweet)
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
8Serving Size:
1 sliceAmount Per Serving: Calories: 556Total Fat: 27gSaturated Fat: 16gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 9gCholesterol: 157mgSodium: 547mgCarbohydrates: 71gFiber: 1gSugar: 39gProtein: 8g
55 Comments on “Striped Zebra Cake”
Everyone at my house really loved this dessert! Thanks for the recipe! We enjoyed it!
Zebra cake is my go-to dessert for everything! It looks like your cake didn’t turn out because the chocolate portion wasn’t “heavy” enough. Usually, I have thicker chocolate stripes on the bottom, and thinner white ones on the top. I also use 1/4 cup for each layer (using the measuring cup to layer in the pan), when the original recipe I used said only two tablespoons. Don’t lose hope yet! 🙂
Sounds amazing! Too bad you didn’t get the stripes you wanted, I think it looks good though!
Well I think it looks awesome! If I were to ever attempt thing I think we would just have to call it brown pony cake because everything would probably just mix together.
Liz,
I have actually never even heard of a zebra cake until this post! But I did check out Lisa’s blog and Wow! Your cake looks great to me and as long as it tasted good, to me, that’s all that matters. . but I hear you. . you’ll try again . . and it’ll be fabulous. 🙂
Zebra cakes are amazing. Yours might not be a vibrant zebra, but I can see the stripes, and it looks delicious. And that’s what really counts in the end! I must admit that Lisa’s really looks like a zebra. Like I said, it’s really amazing!
This is a list to write home about – I will refer to it often and won’t have to make my own bucket list of things I should be able to bake, cook, make, or fail at. I actually had never seen a Zebra cake but I HAVE seen a whole zeal of zebras (yep, a group of zebras are called a zeal). When I was in Cambria last Winter I was lucky enough to spot about 25-30 of them grazing in a field at the Hearst Ranch – from his original zoo stock . And, honestly, Liz, their stripes looked sorta like the results of your cake. So, don’t fret. It’s always about the taste, anyway.
It’s hard to believe that you mention there are some things that you hesitate to bake! But I understand blogging give you more courage to tackle new recipes. This year I’m really hoping to bake more. I hope I can say it’s not that hard to bake… it’s my dream to say that. 😀 Beautiful zebra cake. I’ll have to put this on my list, but maybe a few years later? Hehee. By the way Happy New Year Lizzy! 🙂
This still is a stunning looking cake to me Liz! I love any marble cake, no matter what you call it!
Wow the batter looks amazing. I wonder what happened when it baked. It is a mystery. But hey at least it tasted good, which when it all boils down to it, is the only thing that really matters.
Liz, I still think your cake looks amazing and zebra-like. As long as it tastes fabulous, who cares what it looks like, right? And you can definitely cross zebra cake off your list – I say this is a success!
This is one beautiful cake. I love the swirled effect.
Yummy! That looks so beautiful. Great job!
Well, to me it looks beautifully marbled and much better than anything I could ever do since I can barely make the tunnel in a bundt cake come out right. Much, much more important, though, is that it sounds delicious. I share your daughter’s taste for something less rich and this is right up my alley.