Ombre Sheet Cake Food

OMBRE STRAWBERRY CAKE

Steps:

• Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with racks in upper and lower thirds. Butter five 8-inch round cake pans; line with parchment. Butter parchment, then dust with flour, tapping out excess. Whisk together milk, eggs, and vanilla.
• In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt on low speed until well combined. Continue beating while gradually adding butter until mixture is crumbly, about 3 minutes.
• Slowly add half of milk mixture; increase speed to medium and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Slowly add remaining half of milk mixture, scraping down bowl as needed. Beat until incorporated, about 1 minute more. Remove bowl from mixer; divide batter evenly among five bowls (about 1 heaping cup per bowl).
• Tint four of the bowls with pink food color, starting with a small drop and gradually adding more to each bowl to create a gradient of shades.
• Transfer batter from each bowl to one of the prepared pans, spreading to edges with a small offset spatula. Tap pans on counter to release any air bubbles. Bake until a tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 15 minutes per cake. Transfer pans to wire racks; let cool completely. Turn cakes out of pans and remove parchment. In a small saucepan, heat jam and lemon juice and zest until warm.
• Swiss Meringue Buttercream: Combine 1 1/2 cups sugar, 6 egg whites, and a pinch of salt in the heatproof bowl of a mixer set over (not in) a pot of simmering water. Whisk until sugar is dissolved and mixture is warm to the touch and feels completely smooth when rubbed between fingertips, 2 to 3 minutes.
• Transfer bowl to mixer fitted with the whisk attachment; whisk on low speed until foamy. Increase speed to medium-high and whisk until stiff, glossy peaks form and mixture has cooled completely, about 10 minutes. Reduce speed to medium-low; add 4 sticks butter, 2 tablespoons at a time, whisking until fully incorporated after each addition. (Don't worry if buttercream appears curdled after all of butter has been added; it will become smooth again with beating.) Whisk in 1 teaspoon vanilla.
• Switch to paddle attachment; beat on low speed until air bubbles are eliminated, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl, cover with plastic, and let stand at room temperature. Repeat process twice more with remaining ingredients, using the same amounts each time, then combining all three batches of buttercream in the large bowl and covering with plastic.
• Add pink food color, a drop at a time, until desired shade of light pink is reached.
• To assemble cake, place darkest layer, bottom-side down, on an 8-inch cardboard cake round. Using a pastry brush, brush cake with a thin layer of jam mixture; top with 1 cup buttercream, spreading evenly to cover completely. Repeat process with three more layers, stacking darkest to lightest. Finish with lightest cake layer, bottom-side up. Evenly spread top and sides of cake with a 1/2-inch thickness of buttercream, smoothing sides with an offset spatula. Refrigerate until chilled, about 20 minutes.
• Transfer remaining buttercream to a pastry bag fitted with a large petal tip (such as Wilton #127). Hold bag perpendicular to top of cake, with the wider part of the tip opening at the bottom. Pipe a petal in a circular pattern so that it adheres to top of cake. Simultaneously, rotate cake, and continue piping petals so that the end of each petal overlaps the beginning of the previous petal, until top of cake is covered completely. Next, pipe petals onto sides of cake: hold bag perpendicular to side of cake and pipe around cake, slightly overlapping each layer of frosting as you work from top to bottom of cake to cover completely.

UPSIDE-DOWN CITRUS OMBRE CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• For the citrus: Slice the Meyer lemons into 1/4-inch-thick wheels, then trim the wheels into even squares (about 1 1/2 inches in size). Repeat with the navel oranges, tangerines, Cara Cara oranges, grapefruits and blood oranges. Line the cut citrus pieces on a baking sheet in a single layer. Set aside.
• For the glaze: Place the granulated sugar, brown sugar, butter and water into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat; simmer until the sugars dissolve. Pour the mixture into a 9-by-13-inch baking dish and, using a pastry brush, brush over the entire surface.
• Starting with blood oranges and beginning at the top right corner of the baking dish, tightly line the blood orange pieces side by side, with the corners at the top, bottom and sides so you have a row of diamonds, not squares. Repeat, fitting the second row tightly into the gaps from the first row. Repeat with remaining citrus, going from dark to light and creating 2 rows for each type, until the entire baking dish is filled. Cut the remaining citrus diamonds in half and place into the edges of the dish to fill in the remaining gaps around the border. Set aside.
• For the buttermilk cake: Place the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl and whisk together. In another mixing bowl, combine the butter and granulated sugar and beat together with an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat together. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and beat together. Add the buttermilk and beat together until a thick batter forms with no lumps. Stir the vanilla and citrus zest into the batter until just combined.
• Pour the cake batter over the arranged citrus in the baking dish and spread around until you have an even layer. Bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake and the top is golden brown. Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool for at least 30 minutes.
• Place a cutting board or large platter upside down over the top of the baking dish and quickly but carefully invert the cake. Carefully lift the baking dish from the cake to reveal the ombre top. Slice and serve.

EDD KIMBER'S BAKEWELL OMBRE CAKE

Steps:

• Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Butter 3 x 20cm round cake tins and line the bases with baking parchment, buttering the parchment, too.
• In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cornflour, baking powder and ½ tsp salt, then set aside. Put the butter in a large bowl and beat for about 3 mins until smooth and creamy. Add the caster sugar and beat for about 5 mins until light and fluffy. Add the extracts and mix to combine.
• Add the egg white a little at a time, beating until fully combined. Sift in the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the milk, but starting and finishing with the flour.
• Divide the mixture equally between the prepared tins, gently levelling out. Bake for 25-30 mins, or until the cake springs back when lightly touched. Allow the cakes to cool in the tins for 10 mins before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely. The sponge is quite delicate, so take care when working with the cooled cake.
• For the frosting, beat the butter for about 3 mins until light and creamy. Add the icing sugar, a little bit at a time, until fully combined. Beat the frosting until light and smooth, then add the soft cheese and half the jam. Mix until just smooth - don't overmix as it will get thinner the more you stir.
• Put the first cake on a serving plate and spread a layer of the frosting over the top. Then spread half the remaining jam evenly over the frosting. Repeat with the second cake and finally place the third cake on top. Cover the outside of the whole cake with a thin layer of frosting using a palette knife, and put it in the fridge while you prepare the frosting for the decoration.
• Divide the remaining frosting between 3 small bowls. Add about ½ tsp of red paste colouring to one of the bowls and about 1 tsp colouring to another bowl, leaving the third bowl as it is. You want to have three bowls of frosting with clearly different colours.
• To decorate the cakes, put each frosting into a piping bag fitted with a small round piping tip. Pipe six dots of frosting up the cake, 2 of each colour, with the darkest at the base of the cake. Use a teaspoon or small palette knife to smear the frosting to the right. Repeat the piping process, moving the dots up one so that as you pipe around the cake the colour will graduate in a swirl. For the top, pipe two rings of the darker pink dots around the outside, spreading the frosting in the same fashion, followed by two rings of the medium pink dots, and finish with the lighter frosting in the middle. Will keep for up to 3 days, chilled.

CHOCOLATE & CARAMEL OMBRE CAKE

Steps:

• Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line bases of 2 x 20cm sandwich tins with baking parchment. For the Vanilla & chocolate sponges, mix all the ingredients, apart from the cocoa, together with an electric whisk. Scrape half the mix into a second bowl and whizz in the cocoa. Scrape into the tins and bake for 20-25 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean.
• Repeat step 1 for the Caramel & caramel-choc sponges, again leaving cocoa out of the first mixing, then splitting the mix in half and whizzing the cocoa into one batch. Cook as above.
• While sponges are cooling, melt the dark and milk chocolate together in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Remove from the heat, stir in the cream and cool or chill until spreadable.
• When the sponges are cool, spread a third of the caramel over the Vanilla sponge and top with the Caramel sponge. Spread over another third of the caramel and top with the Caramel-choc sponge, then the final third of caramel and top with the Chocolate sponge (don't panic if you mix up the layers, the cake will still look great when you cut in). Spread the chocolate icing over the whole cake to serve. It will keep in a cool place in an airtight container for up to 3 days.