Blue Ombre Cake

Having decided to make a Kit-Kat cake for my son's birthday, I was a little more than annoyed when I realized that there were no Kit-Kat chocolate bars to buy in any of the big supermarkets in Turku! Well then...I started thinking and browsing all possible sites to find a nice enough cake to bake, since I didn't want to make one with fondant this time. Okay, so I did end up with four (yes four!) cakes for one party, but I think this really was my favourite one..and I was well pleased that it turned out great, being the first time I've attempted to bake one like this. Apart from the blue colour (obvious choice for a boy's party) the recipe and idea was entirely from the blog Raspberri Cupcakes. (I've said it before and I'll say it again: one of my favourite blogs!) This was a very good recipe on the whole, nothing went wrong in the process of baking! Oh, and I changed the filling as well. Instead of jam, I put some homemade lemon curd and fromage frais between each layer.  

Sprinkles galore!

The sponge cake

355grams plain flour
1tbsp baking powder
225ml milk
1tsp vanilla sugar
400grams sugar
4 eggs
225grams butter (softened)
blue food colouring

1. Preheat oven to 175degrees. Grease and coat four round 20cm cake tins with bread crumbs. I only had two tins of the same size, so I had to bake the cakes in two rounds.
2. Beat the soft butter, sugar and vanilla sugar on a low speed until nicely combined and then on a higher setting until pale and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs one at a time. Keep whisk at a lower setting, mixing well after each added egg.
4. Start by adding some of the flour and baking powder mixture alternately with the milk. Finish and start with the dry ingredients. Beat until smooth.
5. Measure the batter into four bowls. Add the desired amount of food colouring to achieve three different shades. Leave one set of batter without any colour.
6. Pour batter into prepared cake tins and bake about 20mins until firm and golden.
7. Let the cakes cool completely.

Butter cream icing

500grams icing sugar
275grams butter (room temperature)
(The original recipe included extra table salt. I omitted it, because I was using normal salted butter.)

Beat the butter vigorously until smooth. Reduce speed and add the sifted icing sugar gradually. Carry on mixing at a low setting until all of the icing sugar is combined with the butter. Finish off beating the butter cream on a high speed until pale and fluffy.

Layer the cake with the lemon curd - fromage frais emulsion and put in the refrigerator to set for 15mins.

Ready for the icing!

Start by icing the cake with a thin layer of butter cream. Keep your spatula or palette knife clean from any crumbs by running it under hot water and drying it every now and again. Once the cake has an even layer of icing, add a liberal amount of butter cream on the cake and continue spreading it over the sides and top of the cake to get a nice thick coating all over. Finish it off by first evening the sides with the spatula and then going over the top lastly. Cover the cake in heaps of sprinkles or decorate to your own liking.

Slice of colour!

             

Nice and bright!