Zebra Layer Cake Recipe

I was inspired by a beautiful Instagram photo of a zebra cake and decided to try my hand at recreating it for Valentine's Day.  It was actually not as hard as I thought, and it was pretty rewarding to cut into it and see all the "stripes" and layers.

Like a marble cake or checker cake, obviously you need two batters -- we'll start with a basic yellow cake and a chocolate cake.  The smart and more time efficient way is to use one base cake batter, and then separate half and add cocoa powder to create the chocolate batter.  Sally's Baking Addiction Blog has an easy to follow recipe.

However, I am a chocolate-crazed person and wanted to have a really good chocolate cake, so I made my life slightly more difficult by making two separate cake batters.  The recipe below is what I used.  (Now you have recipes for both chocolate and vanilla cake too!)

Ingredients
Yield: 3 9-inch cake rounds

Chocolate Cake:
1 2/3 cup cake flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (*not Dutch-pressed cocoa powder)
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup warm coffee (or warm water)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Yellow Cake:
2 cups cake flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
2/3 cup milk

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 tablespoons milk

Instructions

Chocolate cake:
Mix together dry ingredients until well combined.  In a separate bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil, and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients and mix until smooth.

Yellow cake: 
Cream together butter and sugar until smooth and creamy.  Add eggs one at a time, and then vanilla.  Mix in remaining dry ingredients and mix until smooth.

Cake baking:
Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease and lightly flour three 9-inch cake pans.

To assemble the cake layers, drop a large spoonful of one batter in the center of the pan.  Top with a spoonful of the other batter.  Alternate spoonfuls of batter, slightly shaking the pan to even it out as needed.  Repeat until three cake pans are evenly filled with batter.

  

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the cakes are baked through (insert toothpick into center; cake is done if toothpick comes out clean).  Allow cakes to completely cool.  



Frosting:
Make sure cream cheese and butter are soft and room temperature for ease of mixing (and to avoid lumpy frosting).  Beat the cream cheese on high speed until completely smooth, ~1 minutes.  Beat in the butter until combined.  Add the confectioners' sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and milk and mix until smooth.

Cake assembly:
The cakes may have formed a domed top during the baking process.  Once the cakes have completely cooled, slice a thin layer off the tops of each cake to create a flat surface.  Place the bottom layer of the cake on a cake stand and evenly cover the top with frosting.  

Use an angled spatula or a really flat spoon, and frost at an angle.  Smooth all the way to the edge, but avoid lifting the spatula until you reach the edge, or else you will lift up the cake and add crumbs to the frosting.  Add the next layers and repeat.  

To frost the sides, gather frosting on the spatula and smooth onto the sides of the cake.  Again, don't lift the spatula.  Instead, spin the cake plate around.

Optional: garnish with sprinkles, coconut flakes, nuts, whatever you like.

In the pictures below, I only made 2 layers of cake and used the extra batter to make cupcakes.