Fantasy Purple Ombre Cake

A very supportive friend of mine who has migrated to Australia was (and still is ... hehehe) so kind that she ordered this cake for her lovely mommy and to surprise her on her birthday.

I am glad and grateful that she shared her idea about "gradient cake". The cake design was inspired by Shauna whom hosted Balancing Bites and called it "Petal effect".

My friend wanted the base cake to be a moist chocolate cake for her mommy and some cupcakes to be served to mommy's colleagues. Thus, baked her a Devil's Food Cake as the large cake and Chocolate Cupcakes.

I am overwhelmed to receive positive feedbacks as my friend and her mommy love everything about the cake (ranging from the design to color to taste - its up to their expectation though). However, the cupcakes were a bit dry.. probably there are some fine-tuning required in my technique or referred to the wrong recipe? ;-p

Coming back to the Petal design, I used Italian Meringue Buttercream instead of the crusting buttercream. The Italian Meringue Buttercream will make the pattern/petal smoother & silky than the usual buttercream.

I used gum paste fantasy flower for its decoration, as it looks simple yet elegant with not much fancy decorations on top. (This is my second time making this fantasy flower, hehe)

Would like to share some experiences with my readers which I came to experience during this journey:

Point 1 - Subsequently to mixing the color paste into the buttercream, I immediately pipe the colored buttercream onto the cake. This is NOT advisable as the colored buttercream texture will have a grainy surface. Lessons learned - the colored buttercream should be rested after the mixing process.

Point 2 - I know how to start piping around the cake but did not know how to end it .. hahaha .. I did a lot of touch up on the end of each row (phew~). Well, I guess I will just need to pipe a dot to end it and I will do that for my next ombre cake ;-)
NOTE @ 29 Aug 12: Just realized that  Balancing Bites updated her post with regards to the above - how to end the design ^^

Should you interested in the know-how to create this gorgeous petal effect.. click here ;-)

Yeah, I can't wait to make another gorgeous ombre cake!

Thank you for stopping by!