Purple Ombre Cake

So today my mum's work hosted a Coffee Morning in support of Macmillan Cancer Support, and I was asked if I would donate a cake to their bake off, the answer was of course yes! I do love a cheeky charity bake off.

After I'd been named and shamed in their company email saying I could outbake them all (which I'm not sure were my words!) I knew the pressure was then on to make something special, and I had just the cake. I've been wanting to make an ombre cake for a while now, and while I hadn't practiced it before I figured I'd just wing it, my usual approach!

So, my decision was made, and the colour? Purple. I decided to make 4 layers from plan to bright purple, each layer was made up of a 5 egg mix.

250g butter
250g sugar
5 eggs
250 flour
2 tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla sugar

First I creamed the butter and sugar and added half of the flour, baking powder, 2 of the eggs and mixed and then added the remainder of the ingredients, mixed and baked for about 40-60 minutes with two tins (yes my actual cake tins, I'll always bake in them!) in the oven at the same time. I made the first layer with no colour and the second I added just a drop of Sugarflaire colouring paste Grape Violet to make it only slightly lilac.

The next batch I doubled the colour and kind of went to town on the last batch, I always worry coloured sponge will look a little dull and wasn't sure how it'd turn out...well...you can see for yourself! Once cool I leveled the cakes to create for equal flat layers.

 

Next I had to ice it with buttercream, I made a ridiculous amount! To the point where I had to consult Twitter to see if I could freeze it - yes I could - phew! First I applied a crumb coat of a very pale lilac and then made a mammoth batch to split into three. The first batch I kept pale like the crumb boat and the next two I tried to be braver with to really make them bright and vibrant, the colour can go really strong so don't be afraid to use it!

I decided to make three rows of roses with buttercream, the darker at the bottom and lightest at the top and the base of the top filled with roses. For the roses I used the Wilton 1M nozzle, as normal - it is my favourite as you know. It's important to keep all of the columns of roses in a line for a neat look...it has to be neat! To fill all of the little gaps I just piped stars into them, and t hey all happened to be in the same lines so it all matched too.

 

  

In hindsight I should have bought a bigger cake board, I did it all a bit last minute so I had to get it from Tesco and it just about fit! I'm normally very critical of my cakes but I have to say I was really proud of this one! I was dying to see what it looked like inside but had to wait until my mum could send me a photo after it had been cut.

sorry I know there's a lot of of pictures to go through!

The coffee morning was a great success and they raised over £140 which is brilliant. I came runner up, considering I don't actually work at that company I thought that was pretty good going, and I got to make a proper show stopper cake which I haven't done in ages.

 

Anyway, for those too scared try an ombre cake...be not afraid! Bake, bake it now!

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