Tiger Tail Cake!
Originally Posted March 31, 2011. Updated 2/21/2021

Tiger Tail is one of my favourite flavours of ice cream so of COURSE I had to design a marbled Tiger Tail Cake recipe around it!
When I was growing up, one of my absolute favorite ice cream flavors was called "Tiger Tail" - Sometimes "Tiger Tiger", depending on the brand.
It was orange ice cream with black licorice marbled through it.
Sounds gross to some, but it WORKS. My favourite part was always the black licorice caramel ribbon.
Still love it, can't get it in Minnesota, so I make it at home. (Click here for my recipe!)
Tiger Tail Cake
Tiger Tail ice cream was such a favourite, obviously I was going to design a cake recipe around it!
This cake flavor takes me back... and it works well for "Tiger" school colors and sports teams! (Consider school bake sale potential!)
Sometimes, I enjoy marbling orange and black Marshmallow Fondant, to make the outside match the inside:
As a flavour alternative, swap banana extract for the orange extract. Banana and black licorice is another unusual flavor combination that works incredibly well!
Tomorrow's cake recipe is based on my husband's favorite ice cream flavor when HE was growing up - Spumoni Cake!

Interested in making wickedly delicious cakes? You'll LOVE my second cookbook, Evil Cake Overlord!
We've long been known for our “ridiculously delicious” moist cakes and tasty, unique flavors. Now, you can have recipes for all of the amazing flavors on our former custom cake menu, and many more!
Bake your moist work of gastronomic art, then fill and frost your cake with any number of tasty possibilities. Milk chocolate cardamom pear, mango mojito.. even our famous Chai cake – the flavor that got us into “Every Day with Rachel Ray” magazine!
Feeling creative? Use our easy to follow recipe to make our yummy fondant. Forget everything you’ve heard about fondant – ours is made from marshmallows and powdered sugar, and is essentially candy – you can even flavor it!
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More Cake Recipes!
Looking for more ridiculously delicious cake recipes? As the "Evil Cake Overlord", I've got you covered! (Ps: Check out my instructions for making Marshmallow Fondant, as well!)
Tortes:
B-52 Torte
Bahama Mama Torte
Blood Orange Truffle Torte
Citrus Splendor Torte
Cookies N Cream Cake
Raspberry Tiramisu Torte
Schmoo Torte
Spumoni Cake
Bundt, Sheet, & Upside Down Cakes
Bananas Foster Upside Down Cake
Brandied Apple Upside Down Cake
Deep N Delicious Cake
French Martini Bundt Cake
French Martini Upside Down Cake
Mango Mojito Upside Down Cake
Pina Colada Bundt Cake
Strawberry Mango Marble Cake
Cupcakes:
3D Monarch Butterfly Cupcakes
Chai Cupcakes
Easy Butterfly Cupcakes
Fat Elvis Cupcakes
Lynchburg Lemonade Cupcakes
Pink Grapefruit Daiquiri Cupcakes
Also: I have Cake Decorating Tutorials, and posts about previous Decorated Cakes that I've made.
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Tiger Tail Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
Cake
- 3 cups Cake flour
- 2 ¼ cup Sugar
- 2 Tbsp Baking powder
- 1 ½ tsp Salt
- 3 ½ oz instant vanilla pudding mix
- 6 Eggs
- 1 ½ cup Water
- 1 ½ cup Butter melted
- 1 Tbsp+ Orange extract
- 1 Tbsp+ Anise extract
- Orange and black food coloring
Frosting
- 1 Batch batch Swiss Meringue buttercream
- 2 Tbsp Orange or anise extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Liberally grease two 8″ or 10″ round cake pans with vegetable shortening, and/or spray with baking spray.
- Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and pudding mix in a large mixing bowl. Add in eggs and water, beating just until smooth.
- Carefully add melted butter to the batter, mixing on medium speed until smooth.
- Divide batter into two bowls, with about ⅔ of the batter in one, and ⅓ in the other.
- Flavor the larger batch with orange extract, tint orange. Flavor the smaller batch with anise extract, tint black. Stir both until everything is fully incorporated and smooth.
- Divide batter among prepared cake pans, using whatever marbling technique that you prefer. (Random globs work best for this recipe.) To marble the batters, use a butter knife, held straight up-and-down. Starting at one side of the pan, run the knife through the batter in a long zig zag motion – hitting both the “top” and “bottom” of the pan, from your view – all the way to the other side. Then, turn the pan 90 degrees, and repeat.
- Bake until golden and knife inserted into center of batter comes out clean and cake springs back – about 45-60 minutes.
- Allow to cool 10-15 minutes before turning cakes out onto baking rack to cool fully. Ideally, allow to cool to room temperature, wrap tightly with plastic wrap. Allow cake to sit overnight, make frosting & ice cake the following day.
- Prepare either American or Swiss meringue buttercream, using orange or anise extract to flavor it to taste. Tint orange or black, as desired.
Notes
Nutrition

This recipe is one of many fantastic Canadian recipes in my cookbook, "More Than Poutine: Favourite Foods from my Home and Native Land”. "More than Poutine" is a Canadian cookbook like no other - written by a Canadian living away, it includes both traditional home cooking recipes, as well as accurate homemade versions of many of the snacks, sauces, convenience foods, and other food items that are hard to come by outside of Canada! Order your copy here on this site, through Amazon, or through any major bookseller!
This deserves a big 'OMG!' I love, love, love Tiger Tail ice cream, since trying it 25 years ago on my honeymoon. I do not understand why this hasn't caught on crossed the bridge to Michigan!
As a kid I loved Tiger Tail and miss it to this day. I will now find myself baking a cake for the first time in my life and enjoying all of it on my own because for some reason 'normal' people cannot find the euphoric joy of orange and licorice like I can. Poor souls.
AMAZING! How is it that I have not come across these beautiful recipes before? I am fellow Canadian (NL,) and dearly remember Tiger Tail ice cream, which lead me to this recipe. I have to make this recipe. I will follow you and find more delicious recipes and I really look forward to being as thrilled as I was to find this recipe!
I don’t understand why every great creamery in Canada has been absorbed by a mega dairy... TigerTiger Ice Cream disappeared in Winnipeg when DutchMaid vanished - I understand the flavour has resurfaced as TigerTail from Chapman’s... so that’s good . But I digress
Your cake looks absolutely wonderful...