Ombre Vanilla Cake With Tahini Orange Blossom Buttercream Frosting
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
- 4 cups plain all purpose flour
- 2.5 cups caster or superfine sugar
- 3 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon fine salt
- 3 cups water
- 1 cup oil
- 6 tablespoons white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste or extract
- Pink rose food colouring
Buttercream (makes enough for this plus a bit more too but more is easier to work with)
- 750g/26.5ozs. butter softened
- 375g/13.25ozs. cups caster or superfine sugar (not icing sugar)
- 225ml room temperature water (test this with the inside of your wrist)
- 4 tablespoons hulled tahini
- 2 teaspoons orange blossom water
- Pink rose food colouring
Decoration
- Roses and orchids to decorate
Step 1 - Line the base and sides of 6 x 20cm/8inch round tins. If you don't have 6 of these, make the batter in batches. I have 3 tins and halved the recipe and baked them and then cooled and started all over again. Unless you have a big oven it is best to do this in two lots. Do not make the mix and let the batter wait. Preheat oven to 160C/320F.
Step 2 - Whisk the flour, sugar, bicarb and salt together in a large bowl. In a jug measure the water, oil, vinegar and vanilla bean paste. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add in the wet in 2-3 batches stirring to get rid of lumps. Pour into a jug and measure the batter.
Step 3 - You should have 2 litres or 8 cups of batter. Divide the amount of batter you have into sixths. I had 333mls (roughly) for each cake. Pour one plain vanilla cake, then add a little food colouring and then pour a second cake. Then keep gradually adding more colouring and pouring the cakes until it is a deep pink shade. Tap the cakes gently to get rid of large air bubbles and bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Step 4 - Allow cakes to cool completely and then place a layer of parchment between each cake. You can freeze the cake until you need it and it actually helps a little if you pop them in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Step 5 - Make the buttercream. Beat the butter on a low setting (3 out of 10) using a beater attachment. Add half of the sugar and water and then beat for another 3 minutes and then add the remaining sugar, water, tahini and orange blossom water and beat for 7 minutes. The sugar will no longer be grainy and you should have a lovely smooth buttercream.
Step 6 - Keep the frosting plain white for the time being. Place the bottom and darkdest cake on a cake turntable. Spread between the cakes starting with the darkest colour and then going to the palest (or you can do it the other way around). Make a crumb coat on top and also spread some on top. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Step 7 - In the meantime take 3 large piping bags-you will be dividing the buttercream into three portions. Fill the first with a third of the white buttercream. Then tint the buttercream with a little pink to form a baby pink shade and fill the second piping bag with the next third and then add a vivid pink to make the final shade and add the remaining buttercream into the third piping bag.
Step 8 - Pipe thick logs of buttercream on the side. I did two rows of each colour but with your eye divide the cake into three and see how many rows you will need. Start with the darkest colour and then finish with the white.
Step 9 - Take a cake scraper and have an empty bowl ready. Gently turn the turntable around and the colours will meld. Decorate with fresh flowers and leaves.