Pink Zebra Cake

by Brandy
(Carthage, Missouri USA)

My Pink Zebra Cake

My inspiration

A 16 year old girls birthday party. What is more popular with girls than hot pink and zebra stripes?

A Cake Decorating Tip

PRACTICE and give yourself lots of time because things rarely work out the same way twice.

My Secret Ingredients

Coffee in the chocolate cake and marshmallow fondant. (I got the recipe from Wilton?s cake forum under bunnywoman).

Discovered A Knack For Baking

I should start with telling you I have 6 nieces and nephews. Buying nice and pretty big cakes can be really expensive.

So 2 years ago my middle nephew asked for a Spiderman cake. I thought, well I'd just seen the pan at Wal-Mart, maybe I could try it for him.

I've never been a great cook! just ask my husband, he'll you tell some of the things he's tried to eat, because he loves me, but I've always had a knack for baking goodies.

To my amazed surprise Spidy turn out pretty good even for using store bought canned icing. I got ambitious and made my brother a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle face on a plain chocolate cake with chocolate icing-free hand. It worked out again.

Everyone loved the cakes and I found decorating them to be so much fun and the look on someone's face when they see their cake is more rewarding than I can even describe.

Cake Decorating Classes

My cousin encouraged me to take some classes at our local hobby store and now I've taken all the classes I can find in my area. If get stuck on something I haven't learned yet or need a refresher I go to YouTube. There are soooo many video's uploaded with cake decorating and baking techniques, you can find just about anything you need.

This cake is one of my favorites. I don't use fondant a lot just because the taste isn't very good to me, then someone suggested this Marshmallow version and I went in search of a recipe. I made a batch a few days before hand and was relieved that it really did taste better so I tinted it black since it takes so long, then made the rest the night I needed it.

I always bake my cakes a day or two early so I can freeze them, however after you ice them they will sweat so that's something I've learned to work with. The top tier is chocolate and I haven't yet found a recipe better than good ol' Pillsbury. I like to add cooled decaf coffee instead of water for a richer flavor.

Fondant Cake Decorating Tip

I covered it in the hot pink fondant. This is where practice and extra time come in. I rolled it on the thick side because I was afraid that the cake might show through (from a prior experience covering a chocolate cake) had a wrinkle and a tear.

I decided then that the cake would just be too plain with pink and zebra stripes, a lime green bead border and a few curls. So I decided to used different sized circles and made enough to have some springing out of the top.

Free Hand Zebra Stripes

Luckily I knew the customer wouldn't mind because it was a free cake. The bottom tier is white cake so it covered well with the white buttercream and fondant. I'd looked up all kinds of ways to apply the zebra stripes. I decided it would look more realistic if I hand cut them and applied one coming up then one going down.

Then it was time to get busy cutting the fondant circles and curling the wires. I used different sized cookie cutters for the circles and twirled the wire around a dowel rod then cut them different lengths. I then took a big circle, a medium circle or a small circle and glued them together with the wire sandwiched between using vanilla extract. I let them dry over night. I then applied the rest of the circles on the cake also using the vanilla.

I used the dowel rods again to curl the strips of fondant and let them dry over night too. The next morning I placed the springing circles coming out of the cake and used buttercream icing to glue on the curls.

I love the clean look of this cake and really think the last minute circles were a great compliment to it.

Happy Baking!

This article was printed from Wedding-Cakes-For-You.com

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