Vanilla Ombre Rosette Cake Recipe

A couple of years ago, my friend Katie from Resting Dough took on the amazing task of creating an ombre rosette cake for my birthday. This was her first time tackling such a design (can you believe that!) and it turned out so beautifully. With Thanksgiving and holiday festivities coming up, I thought it would be fitting to share this recipe. The colors can even be adapted to fit the current season. For example using the colors red, orange and white for Thanksgiving or blue and white for a frosted Christmas. 

Vanilla Ombre Cake with White Chocolate Buttercream
Adapted from addapinch.com and restingdough.com

The recipe was doubled to make a thicker 3 layer cake. 

1 1/2 cup of butter
3 cups of sugar
5 room temperature eggs
3 cups of flour
2 tsp of baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup of heavy cream
2 tsp of vanilla
Food coloring of your choice. (I used Wilton’s rose gel food coloring)

1. Set oven to 350 degrees.

2. Prepare 3 9 inch cake pans by buttering and flouring or line with parchment paper.

3. Cream butter and sugar together. When fluffy, light and pale, beat one egg at a time to ensure it is thoroughly mixed.

4. Combine milk, cream, vanilla together. Pour half the liquid with the butter mixture and then mix with half the dry ingredients. Continue with this pattern and end with adding the dry mixture last.

5. Stir the batter until well combined.

6. Divide the batter into how many layers you need it to be and add the color you like. (Gel food coloring is very very potent. Use wisely.)

7. The original directions said to bake for about 25 – 30 minutes. Since the recipe was doubled it baked for 45-50 minutes.

8. Check with a toothpick/skewer/cake tester. When it comes out clean, allow to cool on a rack.

9. Using a cake leveler, cut off the excess cake dome. 

10. When the cake layers cool and are all the same level and height, apply a layer of buttercream between each layer and a scratch layer all around the cake. The scratch layer is a thin, smooth-ish layer of icing so the decoration will have a surface to stick on. After each row of roses, stick the entire cake in the freezer or fridge to keep the rosettes from melting. 

White Chocolate Buttercream

Adapted from Food and Wine

1 cup of butter
4 cups of white chocolate chips
2 cups of icing sugar
2 tsp of vanilla

1. In a large bowl, melt the white chocolate and beat it with the butter, icing sugar and vanilla. Beat until fluffy.

2.Make a few batches as needed for the rosette design

I hope to share more recipes on the blog as Christmas nears. Is this something you would like to see more of? Let me know in the comments below =)

A huge thank you to Katie, for this cake and recipe. I hope to be in the kitchen a lot more with her in the near future! And a special thanks to Alanna Milaney for the professional photos.