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Icing and zebra outline
1. Ice an 8-in. round with white icing. Use a toothpick to draw the outline of a zebra. Using tip No. 2, trace the zebra outline with light blue icing.
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Fill in body
2. With tip No. 2, fill in the zebra’s body and head with light blue icing, leaving the muzzle free of icing. Use a small offset spatula to smooth the icing.
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Fill in muzzle
3. Use tip No. 2 and dark blue icing to fill in the muzzle, and smooth with an offset spatula.
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Add features
4. With tip No. 2, pipe light blue ears. Then, add the interior of the ears using dark blue icing, and pipe dark blue hooves. Outline the zebra and add facial features, a tail and stripes using black icing and tip No. 2.
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Add stripes on side
5. On the side of the cake, use tip No. 3 and dark blue icing to pipe large zebra stripes. Smooth with an offset spatula.
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Pipe message
6. Pipe an appropriate message on top of the cake with dark blue icing and accent with light blue dots.
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Create borders
7. Use tip No. 4 to pipe alternating dots of black, dark blue and light blue for the bottom border. Add a zigzag top border in light blue to finish the design.
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About Rachel Vaughn
Rachel Vaughn, a decorator at The Cakery, Dayton, Ohio, has been decorating for five years. She got her start when she attended a decorating class as a precursor to culinary school. The instructor spotted her talent and instead of attending culinary school, Vaughn went straight into the industry. For the last two years, she has competed in regional decorating competitions. In 2011, she attended her first national competition, and brought home first place this year in the 12th Annual Creative Decorating Competition.
This versatile, blue-based zebra cake is great for a baby's homecoming or first birthday. For a girl, simply change the color scheme to pink.
See more captions at upper right.