A leprechaun was here

Remember that time I tried to make an ombré layer cake for my mom’s birthday and messed up the simplest part of the process, resulting in a randomly striped cake?

I do.

By now I’ve heard the following reassurances:

It still tastes great. 

Hunny I think it’s perfect!

This is the best cake I’ve ever had. 

I think I actually prefer the colors this way.

I’d like to take a moment to thank my mother for saying each and every one of them. 

Thanks mom!

I’m sure you prefer the #3 layer in place of the #2 layer. You’re right. It looks better that way.

Leave it to mothers to justify completely unjustifiable things to their daughters in an attempt to make them feel better.

In reality we should blame Dad. He’s the one who invited me to join him for a pedicure in the middle of my cake-making process. I’m sure if I had not been distracted by the relaxation and soaking, I might have remembered the setting the layers on the cooling racks in the wrong order so I could be unpleasantly surprised when I cut into the cake after dinner.

Thanks Dad!

Seriously though. That was a great pedicure.

So today, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I present you with a chance to wow everyone with your very own St. Patrick’s Day layer cake. 

After being inspired by a much prettier version from Cupcakes and Cashmere late last week, I had a feeling this one was going to be a Pinterest fail. Perhaps I willed it to be. Regardless of my layer issues, the cake and icing were delicious.

Here are some tips for not messing up your ombre cake experience:

1. Fill the cake pans more than halfway. I wanted to keep my layers thin since I was making four different colored ones. In the process I overcooked them a little. The cakes have a nice crunch to them but I found that my best layer was the one without the food coloring in it which also happened to be the thickest. Unless you are doing ombre, bake two colors and cut the cakes in half.

2. Use this cake recipe but consider doubling it (see above)

3. 10, 5, 3, 0. Those are the amounts of green food coloring I used for each layer of my cake. Divide the batter into bowls and add coloring separately. Do your dark layers first so you can adjust for the lighter one. Remember what order they are in because they look the same from the outside.

4. Use this icing recipe. Consider doubling it.

5. Don’t stress about the outcome. In the end, I was the only one who cared that my layers were out of order. My mom loved that her cake was homemade and let’s face it, the boys only care about blowing out the candles and eating the ice cream that goes with the cake anyway.

I’ll be back later this week to talk about this little St. Patrick’s Day gem.

And the gigantic biceps I built carrying it during my commute this morning.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!