Blackberry Ombré Cake

This is more my style of decorating.  I like clean, classic lines.  That's why I find fondant so attractive, despite its taste.  Then I started practicing with pastry tips and ruined my original design.

Ombré is a decorating technique where you use multiple colors, but there is no sharp line between them.  They're blurred together.  They can be horizontal, vertical, spots, etc.  For cakes, the easiest gradient is horizontal.  I chose to to depth of a single color, but you can do any colors you want.  A rainbow can be ombré.  In fact, real rainbows don't have distinct separations of the colors, so that's a good example.

In addition to being in real contention for the wedding cake design, this one marks my move into piping the decorations.  I picked up a #1A tip, which is just a half-inch round, to make laying the rings easier.  In videos, it gets a lot of use piping in fillings and the top.  For the pearl border, I switched to a #7.  You press, release, and pull back into a teardrop.  Set the tip near that tail and repeat until you've gone around.  There are more intricate borders that use similar techniques, but this cake was supposed to be about elegant simplicity.

I learned a lot with this cake.  So far, most of what I've been doing has been a success on the first try.  That's not how you learn.  There were supposed to be three colors of icing, but adding more frosting to the darkest color didn't work with purée in cream cheese frosting.  Now I know to start with a larger batch of the lighter shade and break it down into darker ones as I go.  I wasn't happy at all with the texture of the cake, and cut my thumb trying to even the top because it was so tough.  And I played with enough pastry tips to know that too much embellishment really does look tacky.  But what else am I going to do with 1/4 cup of blackberry-flavored cream cheese frosting?

1 Blackberry cake
1 batch pipeable cream cheese frosting
1 C fresh or defrosted blackberries
additional blackberry purée and/or food coloring

1.  Trim cake layers even.  Place a small dollop of cream cheese in the center of a cake circle to secure the bottom layer.  Center one on it right-side up.

I was trying a swirl thing with the filling that didn't work.

2.  Pipe on a layer of plain cream cheese frosting, then dot with reserved blackberries.  Save a few to decorate the top if you'd like.  Place the top layer of cake upside-down, so the bottom is your even top of the cake.  Crumb-coat the cake with uncolored frosting.  Chill to set the icing for at least 20 minutes.

3.  Color 1/2 C of frosting in your darkest shade, then another 1/2 C in a lighter shade.  The remainder will stay the original color.

4.  Fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain round tip with the darkest shade of frosting.  Pipe a round or two around the bottom third of the cake.  It doesn't have to be even, and it's ok if there are small gaps.  Fill the bag with the middle color and continue.  You don't have to wash out the bag for this transition.

5.  Switch to a clean bag and fill with the uncolored frosting.  Pipe the top third and the top of the cake.

6.  With an offset spatula, even out the top of the cake to make sure you used enough frosting.  Then get out a bench scraper and hold lightly against the vertical it while you turn the cake turntable.  The piping lines will start to disappear.  Wipe off the scraper and continue until the sides of the cake are smooth and the piping lines are blurred.  Use the offset spatula to clean up the top edges.

7.  You can stop there, or use some of the icing you've scraped off to decorate.  I should have stopped with the pearl border at the bottom and a berry on top.  It's up to your personal style.

8.  Since this is cream cheese frosting, keep cake refrigerated.  You can get it out an hour before serving to soften.

Makes one 8" layer cake

Difficulty rating  :)