Violet Petal Ombre Birthday Cake

 

My friend Jen asked me to make a cake for a birthday party to celebrate both her and her husband's 40th Birthdays.  After deciding what size she needed, she also told me that I could come up with the design myself!  I have been admiring ombre cakes for quite some time and was excited to give it my first shot.  I loved the petal style but was a little put-off by how much WORK it seemed like....and I'm all about keeping my decorating fun and enjoyable....not tedious.  So I made up my own way of doing it that didn't involve a thousand offset spatula swipes, and mixing a bunch of tiny bowls of tinted frosting.

I started with a double batch of vanilla buttercream.  I did a light crumb coat and iced the top of the cake smooth with white icing, and then reserved a small amount for later. 

thin crumb coat

Start with a big bowl of the lightest color you will use for your cake design.

My first row of petals would be the lightest violet possible. So, add a small amount of color to your big bowl of icing:

 Before working on the cake, I practiced my petals on a practice board.  Using a 12 tip, I made a large dimensional dot at a 90 degree angle, and then pressed down into it and swiped the frosting into a tail:

The great thing about practice boards is that you can pick the practice frosting up with your spatula and put it right back into the bag.  No waste!

I made my first row of petals with the light violet icing.

 

 Then, I squeezed the icing that was still left in the piping back back into the bowl.   

 You can now add a little more violet color to make your icing a shade darker for your next row.  And just keep repeating those steps over and over.  No wasted icing, no spatula swipes and cleaning.
When all the rows on the sides were finished, I used the reserved white icing to pipe matching petals along the top to make a matching border.

 



 

Jen is a photographer, so  I was hoping she would appreciate the ombre effect on a cake.  I loved making this cake and will definitely try it again with new colors.

 

Happy Birthday Matt & Jen!