Anyone that follows me on Pinterest will know that I had a slight obsession with ombre cakes for a while. As with all my baking fixations, the only remedy is to actually try out whatever recipe I'm obsessing over, and now I'm almost cured...
...or I would be if it
wasn't so much fun to make that I want to try it out again...and
maybe just once more to make sure...
Things I have learnt from making ombre cake...
The original recipe called
for the seeds from a vanilla pod, but I used vanilla bean paste as it
was cheaper (although still bloody expensive!). This was a mistake as
it is really no different from vanilla extract in taste, and will
give your cake a beige tint – I would leave it out completely next
time as it doesn't add anything much to the flavour of this
fabulously coconutty cake.
I didn't whisk the cake
mixture for long enough after adding in the wet ingredients. This
made it a very dense cake as you will also lose some of the lightness
as you mix in the food colouring.
The easiest way to
accurately divide up cake batter is to weigh the mixing bowl on its
own before you start, weigh it once all the ingredients are mixed,
then minus the weight of the bowl and divide the total by the number
of layers you would like to make. This gives you a number which is
the weight of batter you should have in each of your small mixing
bowls. Simples.
If you over estimate how
much food colouring you need when you start out, you can swap a
tablespoon or so with one of the undyed bowls of mixture to even out
the colours. Although you will need to do this in moderation to avoid
everything looking the same shade.
The top and side of the
cakes will become golden brown as they are baked and will look ugly
against the white icing once it is stacked up. Avoid this by
carefully shaving off any brown bits with a serrated knife once cool.
I wanted to try two
different kinds of ombre decorating techniques with buttercream and
with fondant. If you are making the fondant version then you can skip
the buttercream ombre stage, as you can't see it from the outside of
the cake once the fondant is in place.
When I make butercream it never looks as white as it does in the pictures on all the American baking blogs that I follow. I have decided that they must have whiter butter there, as I can think of no explaination for why my buttercream is always more of an ivory colour.
You can buy special
tapered rolling pins to roll out fondant icing in this way, however
the handle of a paintbrush works just as well.
If the fondant gets warm
it will become too soft to work will and may need to be placed in the
fridge to firm up. Avoid this by only mixing colours into and rolling
out a small amount at a time.
Coconut Ombre Cake: makes one 5inch cake
For the coconut cake layers:
280g plain flour
280g caster sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
170g unsalted butter, softened
6 egg whites (approx 240g)
150ml coconut cream
50ml Malibu
75g desiccated coconut
Food colouring paste (I used mint green)
For the malibu syrup:
½ cup caster sugar
¼ cup malibu
¼ cup water
- Preheat oven to 175°C, line five 5inch round cake tins (or similar), weigh your mixing bowl
- Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and mix briefly to combine
- Add the softened butter to the dry ingredients and beat with an electric whisk until it reaches a coarse breadcrumb-like consistency
- In another bowl mix together the egg whites, coconut cream, malibu, desiccated coconut and vanilla
- Add half the coconut mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk everything together for a few minutes before adding the rest of the and whisking again
- Divide the mixture evenly between five bowls and mix the food colouring into four of the bowls to make four varying depths of colour
- Pour into the prepared tins and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean
- Heat the syrup ingredients in a pan and simmer gently for 5 minutes
- Brush over the cake layers whilst they are still warm
- Leave to cool completely before icing
For the coconut swiss meringue buttercream:
340g caster sugar
6 egg whites (approx 240g)
400g unsalted butter, cut
into 2cm cubes
¼ teaspoon salt
150ml coconut cream
60g desiccated coconut
Food colouring paste
- Heat the egg whites and sugar in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water
- Stir the mixture over the heat until it is hot to the touch and the sugar has dissolved
- Transfer to a mixing bowl and whisk with electric beaters until it forms a meringue and the mixture has cooled to room temperature (this will take around 10-15 minutes)
- Begin adding the butter one cube at a time, whilst continuously whisking, until all the butter is incorporated
- The mixture may look slightly curdled at this stage but continue whisking and it should become smooth again
- Add the salt and coconut cream then whisk again to combine
- Remove a quarter of the mixture (approx 400g) to a separate bowl and stir in the dessicated coconut, use this buttercream to fill the cake and crumb-coat it
- Place the crumb-coated cake in the fridge for 30mins to set before making the ombre icing
Ombre icing:
- Divide the swiss meringue buttercream between four bowls – three with equal quantities and one with slightly more
- Stir the food colouring into the three smaller amounts to make three different shades
- Take the darkest bowl of icing and spread a ½ inch thick layer around the bottom quarter of the cake
- Repeat with next three bowls of icing, ending with the uncoloured icing (the largest amount and spread over the top of the cake as well
- Smooth over any rough bits of icing then holding a small palette knife against the edge of the icing turn the cake whilst gently pressing with the palette knife to create the pretty ridged effect
Ombre fondant ruffles:
300g ready to roll fondant
Food colouring paste
- Take a lump of the fondant and roll it out to a few millimetres thick
- Cut 2cm wide strips and roll the edge with a tapered rolling pin to stretch it slightly and produce the required frillyness (I think I just invented another word). This doesn't need to be even or neat
- Stick the first layer of white fondant frill in line with the top edge of the cake, pressing into the buttercream slightly to secure
- Repeat with two more layers of white fondant, sticking the next layer to the buttercream just underneath the previous one
- Mix some of the white fondant with the food colouring to make quite a dark shade, then add a small amount of this to some white fondant to make the lightest shade of coloured fondant you are going to use, then roll out as above to make three more layers
- Repeat this colouring and rolling process twice more until you have a total of around 12 layers in four different shades stuck to the sides of the cake
- Trim any excess from the base of the cake with a sharp knife, then smooth over with a palette knife to neaten the edge
Add fresh fruit or flowers
to the top to finish
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