Cruz's Ombre Cake

My beautiful, gorgeous, amazing, precious baby sister is pregnant.

She's pregnant with her very first baby.

A little boy.

I am partial to boys. 

Obvs.

My mom (aka my hero) and I have been planning for this day forever.

I really never thought this day would come.

Why you ask?

Well, one example is that she is extremely selfish.
Not in the gross rude way you may think.
She's the most generous person you will ever meet, but when it comes to getting some sleep, then she's not giving that up for anything.... or anyone!
She can't be woken up early for a crying baby either (ahem... mine, for example).

The girl loves to take naps at any given moment of the day.
Like seriously...
any.
given.
moment.

She can be hanging out and talking one minute and then next, she's snoozing on the couch, catching up on her beauty sleep.
That girl loves her beauty sleep.

It doesn't matter where she's at or who's around, if she's tired, she's going to lay that pretty little head down and catch some zzzzz's.

That's one of the things I love so much about her.

She does her own thing and doesn't care what people think.

If she's sleepy at 1:30 in the afternoon in the middle of a conversation, 

well then she's going to take a nap, damnit!

My mom and sister in law (who I really consider my sister, so we can just take off the 'in law' part now) and myself all put together a cinco de Mayo themed baby shower with paper airplane accents.

It turned out so pretty and colorful.

I knew I had to make a spectacular cake to keep up with all the fabulosity that we had planned.

At first my mom thought we should order a cake since there were so many people invited ...

90 in all!

But I really didn't want to do that and thought that we could make one for less money and please...

anything made from scratch is always better and more meaningful, in my opinion.

I researched and researched what kind of cake I was going to make.

I thought for a while that I wanted to make a rainbow cake.

I just thought it would be fun and festive and ... well...

colorful.

But then, a lightbulb went off in my head and I thought...

Ombre!!

Ombre blue cake!

That sounds like a fun cake!

So I got to researching, and there are some beautiful ombre blue cakes out there.

I decided to go my own way, make the cake from scratch (of course, because there's something physically wrong with me to where I cannot purchase a boxed cake mix for the life of me!) and see how it turns out.

And this is what it looked like.

I was so pleased, and impressed with myself.

Let's get this straight.

I'm a cook.

Not a baker.

I like to bake cookies here and there, but I consider myself a cook and can get pretty creative with that.

But baking...

and cake decorating...

and frosting making...

that's a whole different story.

But it's always fun to try different things and challenge myself in the kitchen.

And so I was unafraid and completely intrigued with the idea of making this ombre cake with four different cake batters and four different shades of blue and four different shades of sprinkles to decorate the cake with.

AND make my own buttercream frosting (which, in my opinion turned out a tad too sweet for my taste buds, but my hubby loved it, so that's good enough for me!)

I baked the four layers individually in a 12X18 baking sheet, frosted and stacked them and gave it the 'crumb frosting' layer the night before the party.  That basically means you frost the cake with a really thin layer of frosting which will get all crumby and ugly.  But then the next morning, you take it out of the refrigerator and frost it generously with more buttercream frosting and you will be left with no crumbs!

It's a pretty essential step of cake decorating in the elimination of crumbs process.

I cut out a chevron pattern on some paper and carefully placed it onto the cake.

I sprinkled each layer with my different colors and textures of sprinkles.

I'm gonna be honest.

That part was horrifying !!

It was soooo much harder than I anticipated...
sprinkles sprinkling all over the place.
Rolling off the sides, sticking in places it wasn't supposed to be sticking in.
But in the end, it was well worth it.

No pain, no gain I always say.

Well, I never really say that but some people do and I agree with them.

I really love how this cake turned out.
I think the super trendy and fun chevron pattern that my sister is obsessed with right now was the perfect detail for her special cake.

It's so pretty and I was really proud.

Maybe a little too proud.

I was trying to get everyone's attention at the shower to make sure they saw the cake before I cut into it.

I was acting a little crazy, but you know what..

my creations are my babies.

And gosh darnit, I am a very proud Moma!

The recipe I used for the cakes is here.

The rest, you buy colored food dye, sprinkles, and a Bible.

Pray to God that it all turns out the way you want!

That's the best advice I have for you.

Now go on and get to praying and baking!