Some good ombre.

Week 29! Time is flying by. I'm happy to report that our list of pre-Bun to-dos is quickly shrinking, seemingly directly proportionally to the speed of my growing belly (I can't see my feet anymore when I look down). Making up for lost time in the first few months, I've been cooking and baking up a storm. Most recently, Nick's whole family visited a few weeks ago -- the Bev and Breakfast was at full occupancy -- and we celebrated not one, not two, but three June birthdays. With ambition I'll only ever be able to achieve fueled by pregnancy hormones, I made three birthday cakes...well, two cakes and a batch of cupcakes. Two recipes I have down pretty well by now:

• For Nick -- upon request -- the London Fog chocolate cake with Earl Grey-vanilla buttercream and salted caramel made another appearance:

• For one sister-in-law, I made a batch of lemon cupcakes with fresh blackberry buttercream:

For my other sister-in-law, I tried something new. She 1) tends not to love super-sweet/thick frosting (happy to play clean-up crew anytime), 2) loves coffee, 3) was about to head off for a fabulous Eurotrip and 4) for a few years has had balayage highlights which create an awesome ombre effect in her long, brown hair. Add the inspiration together, and I give you ombre tiramisu cake:

  

I've had this amazing cake book (as delicious to look at as to eat from) for a while now, and often what I find makes her cakes so stunning is that the author actually makes small-diameter, sky-high stacked cakes. The easiest way to achieve that is using a bunch of smaller pans, so this was the perfect opportunity to buy four, six-inch rounds (what's a house in the suburbs for, if not to have storage for a growing collection of cake pans?). I ultimately used a different recipe than one in the book to achieve a more "pure" tiramisu and ombre effect, and for my first time making it, I was quite pleased with how it came out.

These little cuties made four tiny layers: one vanilla, two coffee and one chocolate:

The secret weapon of this recipe is espresso powder (available in many grocery stores), which is used in every element of the cake:

It dissolves easily into whatever you've stirred it into, making it ideal for batters, liquids and even frosting -- all the flavor, zero graininess.

• How do you make three different types of cake with one recipe? By making one big batch of vanilla batter, then stirring in some espresso powder and cocoa into the corresponding layers.
• Then tiramisu (can I use that as a verb?) it all by painting the layers of cake with generous swipes of espresso syrup during assembly.
• The frosting is a not-too-sweet, also-layered mascarpone that ombres (taking another verb liberty) from vanilla to espresso to chocolate, swirling and blending sections together along the height of the cake sides.
• For an authentic finish, pipe remaining frosting into little dollops on top and sprinkle with cocoa, that handy espresso powder and a touch of powdered sugar.

...all creating an ombre homage for a Very Special birthday girl.