A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Zebra-Striped Birthday Cake

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Puck:  I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,
Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier:
Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,
A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;
And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.

I offered to bring a cake to my niece's birthday dinner last night.  When I made that offer, I was only thinking of myself and my long overdue appointment with chocolate buttercream.  

A few hours before the dinner party, it dawned on me that this birthday cake needed to be more than tasty---it needed to be pretty, too.  After all, it was supposed to be a birthday cake.  

Unfortunately, my cake decorating skills rank about even with my yoga and origami skills, which is to say . . . low.  Very, very low.

Thank heaven for Google, marshmallow fondant, and an artistic sister-in-law who came to my rescue so we could create this cake.

My niece is a lover of all animals, especially those that roam the African plain.  I wanted to do a "zebra-themed" cake, but I had no idea how to make stripes without creating a frosting fiasco.  Luckily I came across this super-easy recipe for marshmallow fondant.  

My sister-in-law, Julie, set about mixing the fondant while I frosted a layer cake with buttercream and consumed approximately 1/2 cup of the frosting in the process. A few minutes later, we not only had a frosted cake, but a smooth batch of fondant that was the perfect consistency for making white zebra stripes across dark chocolate buttercream.  

Julie got in touch with her inner Zebra and cut out some fabulous stripe patterns.  We then laid them on the cake and trimmed the edges around the base of the cake for a smooth, finished line.

One pedestal and a purple bow later, and we had an animal-lover's dream cake . . . or an eccentric hat, depending on how you look at it.  I am happy to say that the cake tasted almost as good as it looked.  

 

It could have used more buttercream, though . . .

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