Strawberry Pink Ombre Cake

4.20 from 47 votes

This stunning Strawberry Pink Ombre Cake is perfect for Mother’s day, a Baby-girl Shower or a Cancer Survivor and it’s totally something anyone can do!

Hello fabulous Oh Sweet Basil readers, this is Emily coming to you from The Goldilocks Kitchen again! Mother’s day is coming up fast, and it’s kind of a bittersweet time for me. I don’t have a mom anymore because breast cancer ended her time on earth with us in 2015. If you’re mom is still around, give her all the love you can :0).

Why not honor you mum with this Strawberry Pink Ombre Cake? It makes quite the beautiful centerpiece for several occasions, and is easier to make than you might think. You don’t need any fancy decorating skills, this cake beautiful in its’ simplicity. So, if you’re ready to create this lovely cake for a baby shower, Mother’s Day, breast cancer awareness/survivor or even Valentine’s Day, read on and I’ll walk you through it!

Magic Cake Release

Every home baker’s worst nightmare is a baked treat sticking to the pan. However, what you’ll learn today will change how you bake forever. You will NEVER have anything stick again if you do the following:

Mix equal parts melted butter and flour together in a small bowl (usually two or three tablespoons of each will do)
Brush the paste into your baking dish covering every inside surface and corner.
If making a chocolate cake, substitute cocoa powder instead of flour.
Pour in your batter and bake. It will perfectly release every time. This is sooo great for bundt cakes too :0)

Magic Release for Cakes

Once you have prepared three 8 inch round cake pans with Magic Release and are preheating your oven, we can move on to mixing up a silky white cake batter. Start by mixing your liquid ingredients and your dry ingredients in separate bowls. Next you’ll do something a bit unorthodox for cake mixes- beat soft butter into the flour mixture to get something like a sandy mixture, as seen below. This method makes the cake have a light silky texture, because of science (trust me).

Then you’ll beat in all the rest of the liquid ingredients, including strawberry flavoring, to finish the cake batter. Divide it evenly as best you can into three equal amounts (I just eyeball it). It definitely helps if you have three of the same size mixing bowls, but not necessary.

Coloring your Strawberry Pink Ombre Cake

Coloring your Strawberry Pink Ombre Cake cake can be really fun, but watch out Luke, there’s no returning from the dark side if you put too much coloring in! So always start out with very small amounts of coloring and gradually work your way darker. Liquid food coloring and Wilton coloring paste or gel are very different! The gel’s are MUCH MUCH more concentrated, so be extra frugal with them when starting to add it to your batter. When you’re happy with your colors, pour the batter into your prepared baking pans.

What Rack for Baking Cake

Bake the cakes on one center rack if possible, but if not, two cakes on an upper rack and one on a lower rack will do. Just keep your eye on each, and test with toothpicks. If one cake appears to be done, remove it and let the others bake longer if necessary.

Cooling Cakes

Cool cakes on wire racks for about 5 minutes, then invert onto wire racks to cool for at least an hour (preferably an hour and a half). If I’m in a hurry, I have no problem putting my hot cakes into a fridge or even freezer to help expedite the cooling process.

While the cakes are cooling, whip up your favorite batch of frosting. Yes, you can use any type of frosting you like! My fav is Italian Meringue Buttercream, (which I double for this cake) that’s what I’ve used in my photos here, but any will do! Even store bought white frosting that you color yourself. Just be sure to make enough. If unsure, double it. Always better to have more frosting than not enough! Divide it out into three bowls and color it the same as you did the cake batter.

Assembling a Strawberry Pink Ombre Cake

Plop a spoonful of frosting on your serving platter, cake stand, or whatever you plan to serve your cake on. Set the most deeply colored of the three cakes down over the frosting (it kinda glues and stabilizes it). Now spread the top with some of your darkest frosting to a good 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness. Spread strawberry jam over the frosting, and place the next darkest layer cake over it.

Continue with the corresponding frosting color and more strawberry jam. The last and lightest layer goes on top and is spread with just frosting. I was a little chincy here with the amount of frosting, I probably should have used more (especially because it tastes so darn good…).

Does the Type of Cake Pan Matter?

You may notice the top most layer browned quite a bit more than the others. That was an experiment in the type of cake pans I was using. The bottom two cakes were baked in brand-new Wilton pans, and the top layer was baked with a very old pan I borrowed from someone. The difference is amazing, and they were all done baking at the same time; it didn’t spend any longer in the oven than the other cakes!

Now grab a spatula and start adding frosting to the sides of the cake. You don’t have to be perfect! In fact, mixing colors here and there on the outside of the cake is what makes it look so cool, so let yourself relax.

How to Make Smooth Edges on a Cake Without Fancy Equipment

Once all your frosting is applied, take an object with a long flat edge like a ruler, a bench scraper or large offset spatula, and even out the frosting around the sides of the cake. I don’t have fancy cake decorating equipment, but I do happen to have a lazy suzan and a bench scraper. So I put them to use and they worked great to spin the cake around and scrape it flat!

Refrigerating a Cake

Now, place your cake in the fridge until you’re ready to set it out for display. Refrigerating a cake will help to keep it fresh and from drying out.

Just before displaying, top with freshly cut roses, carnations and baby’s breath. I lucked out and happened to find all these amazing flowers (including the sparkly baby’s breath) at my local grocery store. It looked so pretty on the cake!

Remove flowers as needed when slicing the cake for serving, placing them on the plates as a pretty garnish (Just for looks! I personally wouldn’t eat a real rose.)

Or even better, hand them out to any little girls running around as it will totally make them feel special.

Valentine’s Day RECIPES

Looking for more Valentine’s recipes to share with the ones you love?