To bake zebra striped cupcakes you’ll need two types of cake batter. I used Duncan Hines dark chocolate fudge and Duncan Hines classic white. One box of cake mix can make 12-24 cupcakes, so this is fair warning that you’re going to get a lot of cupcakes from this method.

You could also use your favorite recipe for vanilla and chocolate cupcakes from scratch.

Mix together 3 eggs, ½ a cup of oil and one cup of water with one box of cake mix in a bowl. In a separate bowl do the same with your second box of cake mix.

In your bowl of vanilla cake mix you won’t need any food coloring since it’s already a bright white color.

Now that both cake batter mixes are prepped, spoon the batter into two separate ziploc bags, one bag of black chocolate cake batter and one bag of the white vanilla cake batter. Try to squeeze all the air out of your plastic bag before sealing it shut. Cut the tip of the bag off so you can control how much comes out into your cupcake liner.

Alternate a small squeeze of black cake and next a small squeeze of white cake in each cupcake liner until your cupcake liners are all about ¾ full of cake batter and then bake them for 16-20 minutes at 350 Fahrenheit depending on your cake mix instructions and oven.

Smaller amounts of batter will give you more, smaller stripes. If you pour a large amount in at a time you’ll only end up with one or two stripes.

Make your vanilla buttercream frosting with 1 cup of butter and about 4 cups of icing sugar, 1 tsp of vanilla and 2 tsp of cream or milk. Blend it with a hand mixer or stand mixer for two minutes or until it’s fully blended and no sugar crystals remain.

Take out 3-4 table spoons of icing and add black food coloring to it in a separate bowl. You’ll need this black icing to decorate the zebra cupcakes with later.

Once your delicious cupcakes are fully cooled, it’s time to decorate their cute little zebra faces. If you’re still waiting for your cakes to cool, start prepping the chocolate candy melts. I used white candy melts for the zebra ears. Put the flat side of the candy melt down on your cutting board then chop it in half with a big knife.

Next, take your black candy melts and put a two small dots or stripes of black icing on the flat side to make your zebra nose. I used a number 3 Wilton round piping tip.

Place the white candy melts for zebra ears and use a few drops of white icing on the back of the white candy melts to secure the mouth to the top of the cupcake.

Do a test run on a paper towel to see if your black icing is ready to use and make sure you’re happy with the consistency.

Use the black icing to create the zebras’ black eyes. You could also use brown M&M’s for the eyes. I wouldn’t personally use candy eyes for this recipe. I use candy eyes at Halloween because they look quite eerie but I would not use them for something cute like this.

As another option, you could use some cute little party hat toothpicks to make the zebra cupcakes look like they’re real party animals.