Buttercream Ombre Ruffles Tutorial

I like taking things that are done in fondant, and creating the look and feel in buttercream. This weekend, I worked on this cake and I thought I’d share the process of how I did the buttercream ombre ruffles. The cake shown is has a 9" base and 6" top.

First I set up 6 containers to mix the icing. You can’t see it, but I numbered the containers to keep the colors straight.

Starting with the largest container, I mixed about 4 cups of the darkest tint. (You’re going to use this to tint the other colors) put about 2 cups of icing into each small cup and mixed small amounts of the darkest color into the buttercream icing until desired hue is met. Remember: You cal always add color, you can’t take it out! I struggled with the lightest color and had to add some white food gel to get the lightest color. The light teal wanted to take on a lime green hue. In the end, I topped of the cake with white buttercream. ***If I had to do it again, I’d mix more icing, just to be sure I had enough.

With a permanent marker, label pastry bags and fit with a coupler.

Have your cakes dirty iced. I originally thought I would have flat tops on my layers so I dirty iced only the tops in a base coat. If I had to do it over again, I would dirty ice the whole layer in a base coat of the lightest color.

If you are making a tiered cake, stack it before you begin the buttercream ruffle process.

Measure the height of your cake and divide by 6. This will be the height of your individual colors. starting at the bottom, using a rose tip, start making ruffles holding the tip towards the cake and creating ‘u’ shaped strokes, keeping them even and rhythmic.

Place the same tip into a new bag and start your next layer of ruffles. (by not cleaning the tip, your icing will blend better)

Continue all the way up the cake, changing the tip and bag and the correct intervals, all the way up to the top center of the cake.

I was very pleased with how nice this turned out. It’s real simple to do the buttercream ombre ruffles, don’t be afraid to try. If you have any questions, please feel free to pm me.