mints & honey: The Ombre Cake Birthday Project

So I entered a new decade of my life last week - to mark this new "phase" in life I decided to attempt one of my dream cakes - the Ombre Cake! But I only got down to making it the day after - since I wasn't too keen to do a whole lot of washing on my birthday itself ;)

The ombre cake (I did a coral pink one) is something I have been wanting to make for a long time. These cakes are all the rage in the western world i think - as I see pins of such cakes on Pinterest from time to time and on popular Caucasian food blogs. I can see why - the gradual gradients in the cake sponge somehow just make the cake look that much more romantic.

I had previously done a ombre rosette cake at my cake decorating class - but that was for the cake decor on the outside, so it didn't quite count. Finally - I have a real ombre cake to be proud of! (though the time I took to bake and put it together isn't really something I'd boast about :P)

The concept behind the ombre cake is really quite simple, but somehow it took me some time to make. The process of getting the colours right for each layer was pretty iterative and ended up taking me quite a bit of time. That I had to grease each tin and line it with parchment paper also made it more laborious!

The cake assembling and creaming process also takes me quite a while - perhaps because I am still quite a novice and haven't had enough practice. I had to first cut off the domed tops from each layer to ensure that each one was as flat as possible - and in the process accidentally broke 2 layers into half! (Cakes I've baked aren't usually that brittle, but this was somehow very fragile) You can't quite see my patch up job above, but I assure you that it was very stressful trying to ensure that my cake layers didn't separate halfway during creaming. Thankfully my patch up job was pretty successful :) The cake, with its first crumb coat, was then put into the freezer to set a little before the final creaming.

Having more than 3 layers in a cake also adds to the challenge because you have to make sure your cake doesn't come out lopsided. But I love the elegant look of tall cakes (from photos I see online), so the added challenge was worthwhile on hindsight - after creating one successfully.

To create a nice rustic and natural look, I borrowed some rananculus flowers from my birthday bouquet to decorate the cake. I love the many folds the rananculus petals create - I think it's one of the most (if not the most) beautiful flower ever!