Pink Ombre Cake
Servings: 12
Calories: 703kcal
You'll love this pretty pink, swirly cake!
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Ingredients
Vanilla Cupcake Batter
- 2 1/2 cups cake flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 eggs
- 2 cup sugar
- 3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup oil vegetable canola or extra light olive oil
- 2/3 cup milk whole or low fat, but avoid fat free
- 2/3 cup sour cream full fat or light, but avoid fat free
American Buttercream Frosting
- 1 1/2 cup butter 3 sticks, salted, or unsalted
- 1/3 teaspoon salt if using unsalted butter
- 6 cups powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract best quality available
- 3-4 tablespoons heavy cream half and half or milk
Instructions
Vanilla Cupcake Batter
- Preheat oven to 350*F.
- In a medium bowl, add cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir together with whisk, and set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, add eggs and beat 10-20 seconds. Add sugar and continue to beat on medium speed about 30 seconds. Add vanilla and oil, beat.
- Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add about half of the flour mixture. Add the milk, then the rest of the flour and the sour cream. Beat until just combined. Scrap down the side of the bowl.
- The batter will be thin. Add the batter to prepared cake pans (greased and floured, and lined on the bottom with parchment paper).
- Bake in pre-heated oven for 12-14 minutes.
- Let cool for 1 to 2 minutes
American Buttercream Frosting
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter (on medium speed) until completely smooth (30 seconds to a minute).
- Add salt (if needed).
- One cup at time, add 2 cups of powdered sugar, beating after each addition.
- Add vanilla, or other flavorings and beat to combine.
- Add about 1 tablespoon of cream, and continue beating.
- Add the remaining 2 cups powdered sugar, one at a time.
- Add an additional 1-2 tablespoons cream until desired consistency is reached. If you want to pipe the frosting on cupcakes, the frosting should be nice and thick. Continue to beat another minute or so. The frosting should now be smooth and fluffy.
Assembly
- Layer the cakes, darkest on the bottom, frost with a very thin layer of icing between each layer.
- 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)
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.
Nutrition
Calories: 703kcal | Carbohydrates: 115g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 25g | Saturated Fat: 18g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 71mg | Sodium: 475mg | Potassium: 130mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 95g | Vitamin A: 286IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 109mg | Iron: 1mg