Baking and Caking for Beginners: Purple Zebra Cake

My niece turned 16 and for her cake she wanted the zebra print incorporated with her favorite color, purple. Her 16th party was just a simple get-together of very close friends and relatives, not that elaborate Sweet 16. Being a Filipino, the big party doesn't get done until our 18th birthday. This is a simple design. I wanted to try my hand in making fondant roses and found a video online on how to make it without tools. I think the cake came out pretty good.

I added 2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder to my usual Marshmallow Fondant recipe to make brown fondant. And then kneaded in the black icing color to turn it black. You will use up less black icing color that way than turning pure white marshmallow fondant black.

This is a pretty easy cake to make with hardly any tools used. Here's how I put everything together.

TOOLS I USED

2 - 6 in pans
2 - Pyrex 2-cup Round Dish (4 in)
Plastic Cookie Cutters Assorted Shapes, 101/pkg
Rolling pin
Smooth working surface or Rolling Mat
Easy-Glide Fondant Smoother
Wilton Cutter Embosser
Cake Plate
Decorating Brush
Knife
Ruler
Pizza Cutter

INGREDIENTS I USED

HOW I DID IT

2 days in advance: Made Chocolate Marshmallow Fondant. I added 2 tablespoon of cocoa powder to the recipe and added Black Icing color.

Morning of party: Baked and cooled 2-layer 6 in. cake and 2-layer 4 in. cake. Filled and crumb-coated them.

Cake Cover. Kneaded and rolled out Pure White Rolled Fondant and covered the 6 in. cake. Kneaded the White Rolled Fondant Icing and colored it purple using the Violet Icing Color. I rolled it out to cover the 4 in. cake.

Zebra Stripes. Placed the 6-in cake on the cake plate. Then rolled out the Black MMF I made 2 days ago. I used the pizza cutter to cut out random stripes that I placed all around the bottom tier.

Black Rope Border. Rolled the Black MMF into a rope and placed around the cake.

Black Ribbon Border. Stacked the 4-in cake on top of the Zebra bottom tier. I just used straws instead of dowels to support the top tier. Then rolled out the Black MMF and cut a 1-in ribbon to go around the 4-in cake as border.

"16" Topper. Rolled out the Black MMF and used "1" and "6" cutters from the Plastic Cookie Cutters Assorted Shapes set to cut out the numbers, 2 each. I placed a toothpick in the center of the number "1" with a little bit hanging out to stick onto the cake. Two toothpicks on number "6". I put the two "1"s together and the two "6"s together to cover the toothpicks.

Leaves. Kneaded a little bit the White Rolled Fondant Icing and colored it green with the . Rolled it out used the smallest Leaf Cut-out to make 24 leaves.

Fondant Roses. Rolled out the Purple Fondant and made the roses by following the instructions on this video I found. I made 3 roses and just placed them on the cake as shown on the picture.