Ombré Cake: an eye-catching dessert recipe you’ll love

This delicious ombré cake is a super easy way to elevate a classic vanilla layer cake. Made from six layers of vanilla cake each dyed a different shade moving from dark to light and decorated in rich buttercream, ombré cake is as delicious as it is beautiful.

You can make ombré cake using any color scheme you like. Opt for pinks, reds, and purples, or use sky blue into deep indigo. Swirls of sweet buttercream make this ombré cake a delight to the eyes as well as the taste buds. Bake ombré cake for birthday parties, holiday gatherings, or other social events where you want to treat your guests to an impressive dessert.

Tips

Use room-temperature ingredients for your cake.

You can use a boxed cake mix to cut down your time in the kitchen.

Any flavor of boxed cake mix works for this recipe.

Because this is a layer cake, you'll need to bake the layers in batches. Let them cool completely before assembling the cake.

To make gluten-free ombre cake, use gluten-free cake flour.

Instead of sour cream, use Greek yogurt for a slightly healthier cake.

Full-fat dairy is best for this recipe, but you can use low-fat if you prefer. Don't use fat-free dairy.

Instead of heavy cream, you can use milk to achieve the desired texture in your buttercream.

How to Store Ombré Cake

Cover your ombre cake and store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.

How to Make Ombré Cake

Preheat your oven to 350F. Grease two cake pans with cooking spray and line them with parchment paper.

Combine cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

In a second bowl, beat the eggs. Beat in the sugar, followed by the vanilla and oil.

Gradually beat half of the flour mixture into the egg mixture.

Whisk in the milk. Add in the remaining flour, then beat in the sour cream.

Pour the cake batter into five bowls.

Dye each bowl using your desired shades of food coloring.

Pour the first bowl of batter into the first cake pan. Pour the second bowl into the second cake pan. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes.

Cool for several minutes, then remove from the pans. Repeat with the remaining batter. Leave the cakes to cool to room temperature.

To make the buttercream, cream the butter until smooth.

Beat in 2 cups of powdered sugar. Beat in vanilla and 1 tablespoon of heavy cream. Beat in the remaining powdered sugar one cup at a time.

Separate the icing into three bowls. Dye each bowl of buttercream with the same colors as you used for the cakes. Transfer the buttercream to individual piping bags.

Stack each layer of cake on top of one another, piping the buttercream between each layer.

Go on until you run out of cakes.

Pipe swirls of the darkest color of buttercream around the base of the cake. Moving up the cake, use the next darkest color to pipe the second layer of swirls.

Repeat with the remaining buttercream and swirl buttercream onto the top of the cake using the lightest color. Place in the fridge until it's time to serve the cake.

Slice, serve and enjoy!