I did it! I finally made a rose cake! But not just any rose cake--a pink ombre rose cake! I basically hit two techniques with one...piping bag. It was wonderful.
I have been dying to make a rose cake ever since I first laid eyes on it on Amanda's blog. Unfortunately, the proper occasion to make it never came up until this weekend when I threw a party for a newlywed friend of mine. I had a decent amount of confidence going into making it because a) I watched Amanda's video tutorial about a dozen and one times and b) I've made a couple of cupcake bouquets before, so I was already pretty familiar with the 1M tip.
As long as you're familiar with the 1M tip and you've made roses before, this cake is an absolute cinch to make. Even if you've never made roses before, there really is nothing complex to this technique. You're essentially just making a swirl, and another swirl, and another swirl, until you've covered the entire cake. And what's so great is that this cake is REALLY forgiving. Even if you mess up on a swirl/rose, you can easily just scrape it off and try again. Of course, this wonderful little fact slipped my mind when I was piping, so I was more focused on doing everything perfect rather than remembering I could just do it over if it didn't come out right.
As expected, the perfectionist in me that's never satisfied with anything thinks I could have done a better job than what you see here. For instance, I could have made the roses closer to each other to prevent those annoying gaps. I also could have spiraled the bottom row of roses closer to the cake board underneath, again so there wouldn't be any gaps. But most importantly, I could and should have used a frosting with a stiffer consistency. That is a really significant factor in this cake because if the frosting is too soft, the roses won't hold up well and instead of well-defined roses, you'll end up with droopy ones.
I mostly use store-bought frosting when decorating cakes and although it is pretty stiff, because I had to keep gradually tinting and stirring it, it got creamier and so my roses weren't as defined as they could have been. But cakes are only 50% presentation, so I'm not going to dwell on it. I'd rather tell you how amazing the other 50% was. I used this chocolate cake recipe and paired it with this whipped chocolate frosting and oh my goodness, deliciousness overload. The addition of cinnamon to the chocolate cake batter created a phenomenal flavor and the whipped chocolate frosting was perfect--light and not overly sweet.
I am particularly happy about being able to actually show you guys what a slice of this cake looks like. I know you don't usually get to see what the inside of any of my cakes look like and that's because most of the time, I am making them for someone else and I can't exactly give them a cake that's already been cut into. In this case, I made it for someone else, but the party was hosted at my house so I got to keep the leftovers--which by the way, still tasted amazing the next day even after being refrigerated uncovered overnight.
So yeah, there you have it. My 8-inch three layer chocolate cake with whipped chocolate ganache filling and pink ombre roses. I suppose this cake would have looked even cooler if I had used white cake and made the layers each a different gradient of pink...maybe next time. Until then, feel free to leave me lovely comments about how well you think I did for my first try and how it's not obvious at all that my top layer is bigger than the bottom two. I could use a nice boost of confidence ;)
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