Ombre Cake Recipe

Ingredients

Use Perfect Vanilla Cupcake Recipe for cake.

Preparation

Step 1

~ Directions ~
For the cake, I use my Perfect Vanilla Cupcake recipe.
I divided the batter as evenly as possible between 5 bowls, coloring the darkest layer first, and working from that color as a guide. I used Americolor gels in soft pink, electric pink, and a bit of electric purple (in just the darkest layer). Add the batter to prepared cake pans (greased and floured, and lined on the bottom with parchment paper). I used 6" pans, and made a few vanilla cupcakes as well, but you could certainly do this as an 8" cake. You may want to multiply the recipe by 1.5 (if using my recipe linked above) if you want a nice tall cake. Of course you are welcome to use any other vanilla cake recipe, or a box mix. Also, you probably don't have 5 matching cake pans (nor do I), so you'll have to bake the layers separately (hopefully you have at least 2 matching pans). Bake and fully cool the cakes.

Prepare a batch of American Buttercream Frosting. Again, I made a 6" cake, so for an 8" cake, I would suggest multiplying the recipe by 1.5. I divided the frosting between four bowls, one bowl with a bit more than the others (the one that will be the lightest color, because it's used for the top as well as one row of swirls). I colored the frosting with Americolor soft pink and a little electric pink (for just the darkest color). Also, reserve a small amount of frosting (maybe 1 cup) in the mixing bowl, to use between the layers, and to very thinly frost the outside (crumb coat).

~ Assembly ~
Layer the cakes, darkest on the bottom, frost with a very thin layer of icing between each layer. Because I didn't want too much frosting between the layers (to detract from the colors of the cake), I brushed each layer of cake with warmed cherry jam (most any flavor you like could be used). You could also use a simple syrup, orange juice, or omit this step. Frost the outside of the cake with a thin layer of frosting. Smooth as well as you can (I use an offset spatula), but it doesn't need to be perfect. Place the entire cake in the freezer about 10 minutes for the icing to set, and the whole cake will firm up (making it much easier to decorate).

Prepare a piping bag with a #21 Wilton tip (a moderate sized open star). This is the tip I used, but other open star tips could also work. Fill piping bag with the darkest color icing. Remove cake from freezer, and start along the bottom of the cake, creating rows of swirls. For each swirl, start in the center of the "rose" shape and pipe in a spiral around the center, about 1 1/2 rotations. Continue along the bottom of the cake, creating rose-like swirls. Repeat with remaining colors of icing. You may find that there will be some areas in each row that don't get fully covered, to fill in the little empty spaces just squeeze in some icing, in a curved shape (like a "C") to mimic the rest of the swirls a bit. For the top of the cake (shown below) I used a combination of swirls and some "C" curves for a looser, wavy effect.

Once fully frosted, store the in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Serve with milk, or coffee to accompany the pure sweetness of this cake.