Recipe: Zebra Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

For my oldest daughter's birthday this year, I wanted to make a cake for her.  In the past, we have purchased cakes, but because it was her 10th birthday, I wanted to make it special for her.  My baby loves zebra print and pink.  A couple of month's ago, I came across a recipe for a zebra cake and I knew that it would be the perfect cake for her. 

The cake itself is very easy to make.  I simplified it even further by using a box mix.  I actually used two mixes, one vanilla and one strawberry.  I was able to make a two layer cake and about 16 cupcakes.  Now, if I had it to do over again, I would have done a vanilla and chocolate cake mix so you could really see the stripes.  Or perhaps, made the pink brighter by adding food coloring.  As you can, the pink baked up somewhat light making it a bit harder to appreciate the stripes.  I wish I had some really good pictures to show you of the inside of the cake, but unfortunately, the lighting at the restaurant we celebrated her birthday at was very dim.  The cake was very moist as evident by all the cake on the plate but I also left my cake knife and server at home so we were cutting it with a butter knife and using fork as a server.  

I don't claim to be an expert at frosting cakes.  I just kind of go with it and hope it all comes out.  My daughter loved her cake and that is what mattered.  I will be remaking this soon but this time I will use a vanilla and chocolate mix or maybe even make it from scratch.

Enjoy!

Zebra Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

(recipe by Wende Rickett/The Rickett Chronicles)

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Cake

Ingredients

1 box vanilla cake mix with ingredients as listed on the box

1 box strawberry cake mix (or chocolate) with ingredients as listed on the box

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray two 9" round cake pans with non-stick spray; set aside.  In two large bowls, make cake mix following the instructions on the back of the box. To make the stripes, spoon about three tablespoons of vanilla batter into the center of the cake pan. Next, spoon three tablespoons of the strawberry (or chocolate) batter into the center of the vanilla batter. This will cause the vanilla batter to spread. Continue to alternate batters in bulls-eye fashion until all batter has filled the pans halfway.  You will now have rings of each batter on the outer edges of the pan with thicker rings in the center.  Very lightly tap pans to allow air bubbles to escape.  Place pans in oven and cook according to package directions or until a skewer into the centre comes out clean and the outside is golden. Cool in pan for five minutes and then turn out the cake onto wire racks to cool completely.  Prepare cake for icing, you may need to trim the tops a bit to make sure they are level. Place first layer on top of cake platter.  Add a small amount of the frosting and frost almost to the edge of the cake.  Add top layer.  Crumb coat the cake and chill for 30 minutes. Once the cake has chilled, remove and frost however you want.  I piped my frosting with a large star tip.  On the top, I swirled the star.  I place the tip on the cake and piped a star and then swirled in a the shape of a "c" but going counter-clockwise.  I then filled in any holes with a star.  I piped the sides with the same tip, starting from the bottom, drag the tip to the top.  I then ran a continuous line horizontally for two rows. I then covered any empty spots with stars. Place the cake back in the fridge until ready to serve.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients
1 8-oz package cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

4 to 5 cups powdered sugar, depending on the consistency you need

1 to 2 tbsp half and half (or milk), if needed
 

Directions

Mix cream cheese, butter and vanilla until well mixed and smooth.  Add a pinch of salt and mix.  Add two cups powdered sugar to cream cheese mixture and beat until smooth and incorporated.  Add one cup of the remaining powdered sugar at a time until the desired consistency is achieved.  If it gets to thick, you can add a little half and half to thin it out a bit.  

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