Hey all you cool cats and kittens!

Haha, ready for a tiger cake? Between watching the train wreck called, “Tiger King” and being in quarantine, this cake was created. The Zebra cake has been around for awhile but I thought it would be so fun to go off of that for inspiration and use turmeric in the plain batter with a kick of black pepper in it as well.

1 cup sugar

1 cup butter, softened

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup milk

3 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Chocolate batter:

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon sugar

Yellow batter:

1 tablespoon turmeric (or more if you’re feeling adventurous)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon sugar

1 pinch of ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and line a 9″ round pan (I used an 8 inch) with parchment paper.

Whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder together in a medium size bowl. Put aside.

In another smaller bowl, mix the chocolate batter ingredients, 3 tablespoons cocoa powder, 3 tablespoons milk, and 1 tablespoon sugar (the sugar helps to combine the other two ingredients.

In a separate bowl, mix the yellow batter ingredients, the spices, milk, and sugar. Set aside.

With a mixer in a larger bowl cream butter with sugar until creamy. Add eggs one at a time and then add the vanilla.

While mixer is on low, alternatly add the milk and flour in three parts each, ending with flour.

Remove 2 cups of the batter into a separate bowl and add the chocolate mixture to it, stir well to combine. And then add the yellow tumeric mixture to the vanilla batter, stir well to combine.

Measure out 3 tablespoons of yellow batter in the very center of the cake pan, add 3 tablespoons of the chocolate batter directly on top of the yellow and keep going back and forth layering each batter. Tap pan on counter to help the batter to flatten out a bit more.

Bake for 40-50 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean. Cool on cooling rack. Once cool make frosting.

Chocolate Frosting

1 cup butter, softened

3 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

3-4 tablespoons milk

pinch of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

and a sprinkle of cinnamon

Cream the butter for a minute or two. Add the powdered sugar, cocoa powder, milk, salt, vanilla and cinnamon. Let whip for a few minutes until combined and it is ready to frost the cake!