Ombre Red Velvet Cake

This weekend was my friend, Margaret's, birthday.  She and her fiancé hosted a fabulous fiesta dinner party and we were in charge of bring the birthday cake!  I found a picture of an ombre cake a couple weeks ago on Pinterest and was waiting for a time to get to make it! What a better reason than a birthday cake?!

First, I baked a red velvet cake using this recipe. I then wrapped the two layers in plastic wrap and froze them overnight.  I froze it overnight because I only had time to make the cake one night and then to frost it the night of the party.

First, make the cream cheese icing.  I used this recipe:

Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
-1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
-1 - 8 ounce cream cheese, room temperature
-1 - 8 ounce tub of Mascarpone cheese, room temperature
-3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
-1 cup powdered sugar
In your food processor, or with a hand mixer, process the cream cheese and mascarpone cheese until smooth. Add the vanilla and confectioners sugar and process until smooth. Transfer this mixture to a large mixing bowl.
Then, in the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, whip the cream until stiff peaks form. With a large spatula, gently but quickly fold a little of the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture to lighten it. Then fold in the remaining whipped cream, in two stages. If the frosting is not thick enough to spread, cover and place in the refrigerator for an hour, or until it is firm enough to spread.

 I unwrapped the layers, put a piece of wax paper on the cake stand and put the layers together with a dollop of white icing in between.  

 I then split the icing into 3 bowls so I could dye them the colors for my ombre. 

 I started slowly with adding the color and just saw what happens.  Remember you can always add more but you can't take it away! 

 I then started with the darkest layer on top.

 I spread it out leaving a little bit hanging over the edge so it can blend with the middle color. 

 I then took the lightest color and put it around the bottom layer.

 I then took the middle color and slowly blended it in between the other colors.  Slow is better because if you over blend, you can't go backwards! 

 I then took a long spatula dipped in hot water and traced around the cake to clean it up.  This really made a huge difference so if you're at the step before and you're not super happy with it yet, I would stop before you over blend and clean it up.  

 Then take the wax paper out from below it

 and put sprinkles on it!

 Here is the lovely birthday girl about to blow out her candle. *we couldn't find the candles we bought so we used a tea light lol.  **Margaret found the candles after we left.  Murphy's Law....

 Voila!