Pink Ombré Ruffle Horse Cake & Blue Ombré Ruffle Dragon Cake

These two cakes were for a brother and sister that had a joint birthday celebration, since they almost have the same birthday, except two years apart! The party was at an outdoor venue so it was better to go with buttercream ruffles than fondant ones, so there wouldn't be melting or drooping issues. 

matching ombré ruffle cakes

The pink cake was six layers of ombré pink vanilla butter cake, filled with vanilla bean crème Mousseline. The blue cake was Devil's food cake, filled with dark chocolate ganache. These were pretty hefty cakes, 10" round and 5.5" high! 

yummy vanilla bean creme Mousseline filling

crumb-coated chocolate cake

I used crusting American buttercream for the ruffles on both cakes, so that they would be stiffer and stand up better to the heat. This type of buttercream is made with butter, shortening and icing sugar, so it is quite a bit sweeter than the less-sweet but "softer" Swiss meringue buttercream that I usually use for my cakes. Using tip no. 104, and holding the fat end of the tip towards the cake, squeeze the frosting while turning the cake on a turntable in one smooth motion, without moving the piping bag, to get a nice "flat" ruffle. If you want to go for a wavy ruffle, move the piping bag up and down as you turn the turntable. 

pink ombré buttercream ruffles

standing fondant lettering

To top the pink cake, I made a cute little fondant horse, using brown dark chocolate fondant as a contrasting colour to the pink. I love the extra cuteness that the curly brown hair adds. And, since it's a girl horse, she has a teeny bow in her hair & tail and a tiny daisy flower on her hoof & bum!

pink girl horse fondant topper

love the chocolate hair!

And, as usual, I had to add a floating balloon, with a number one on it! 

too cute horse with a floating balloon

The blue cake was decorated in a similar fashion as the pink cake, except with a cute blue fondant dragon & a blue floating balloon with a number 3 on top. 

blue ombré straight ruffles

fondant dragon topper

"magic" floating fondant balloon

To finish the cakes, I added the birthday boy and girl's names on top of the cake. I covered the letters in glittery blue and pink disco dust, for that added sparkle. The fondant figurines held up pretty well, even though it was an outdoor venue. The cakes were cut about an hour after delivery, and only the dragon's left arm started to droop at that point. 

Happy 3rd Birthday, Luis!

Happy 1st Birthday, Gwen!

Here's a shot of the inside of the 6-layer pink ombré cake! Thank you to the birthday kid's mummy for this pic. Happy birthday, Luis & Gwen! 

pink ombré cake slices