Ombre Layer Cake

I have seen this style everywhere. Cookies, cakes, hair, clothes. So I googled Ombre, it came up with a wikipedia link for a card game......
I decided to re-google, just to make sure I had the right name!
I did, and I still think its awesome.
So the ombre style is a graduation of colours, usually from dark to light.
I love the way it looks on a cake, and especially with a matching ombre icing..... but I haven't figured out how to do that one yet!

I wanted to do a separate post about how to fill and crumb coat a cake, but I didn't get enough pics, maybe in the future, but for now it can be posted here.

I cheated a little as I used packet cake mix, but lets be honest, I'm a working mum, and mostly, I'm lazy, I love my food and making things, but I also love my conveniences and the packet cake mixes are pretty convenient!


OMBRE LAYER CAKE

You will need 1 packet cake mix
Mix as per directions on the box
Once the mix is ready to be poured into the tin, first stir through a tiny bit of the colour of your choice.
**Pour about 1cm worth of mix into the cake tin and bake until the top is springy and a skewer comes out clean, mine took about 25mins.
Turn out on to a wire rack after letting cool for 10mins in the tin, wipe out the tin re-butter and flour. (ok, so I know it sounds like this way takes forever, but I only have 1 tin in this size!!)
To the remaining mixture add some more colour then repeat the directions from the stars spot until the mix is all gone. I got 4 layers out of 1 packet mix.

 Ingredients

 Buttered tin

 About to be floured

Floured

 1st colour

 In the tin

 2nd Colour

 3rd Colour, and because I suck, I didn't get a pic of the 4th, but you can see where its going :)

TO FILL AND CRUMB COAT

Have some buttercream prepared, using about a quarter cup for each layer, place the icing in the middle of the cake (darkest layer on the bottom for me, but either way is fine, as long as the colours are in the right order) and spread out evenly.

I usually put the bottom cake right way up, the 2nd cake upside down, the 3rd cake right way up and then the last cake upside down. It helps with an even top and as they were baked in layers they dont need much levelling, if at all.

Continue for layers 2 and 3.

When the top has been put on, put some more icing in the middle and spread out. The idea of the crumb coat is to seal in all the crumbs, giving a cleaner finish to the outer layer of icing. Spread the icing around the sides of the cake. With a pallet knife run it around the cake scraping up any excess icing and evening out any heavily iced spots.

My cake looks wonky, mostly because when I filled it some of the filling went all the way to the edge and other bits didn't, so when it got crumb coated, the bits that didn't look like they ended up with more icing in the layer..... if that makes sense! :)

Once the cake is covered and smoothed out, place in the fridge to set before continuing on with the final layer of icing. This particular cake was used for a ruffle cake.