Martha Stewart's Coloring Trick For Flawless Ombre Cake Batter

Martha Stewart brings the shade when she makes her trendy ombre cake. To achieve the perfect tint for each layer of her five-layer cake, the media mogul turns to an often-overlooked kitchen product: the toothpick. On her YouTube channel, after she meticulously measures the batter into five separate bowls, Stewart uses toothpicks and dips them into her pink food coloring gel before placing them into her cake batter to achieve various shades of her hue of choice.

The toothpicks serve almost like rulers because the darker the tint you want, the higher up on the toothpick the food coloring creeps. Leaving one bowl of batter without color, Stewart explains that a little gel food coloring goes a long way. She starts by dipping the first toothpick until one-third of it is covered in gel color, for the next layer she dips the toothpick until the gel hits the halfway mark, three-fourths for the third, and the whole toothpick is covered in gel food coloring for the final bowl of batter. 

Stewart's trick gives her a lot of control over the depth of color she uses for her ombre cake, giving each layer just the right amount of food coloring to show a gradual change that is a hallmark of this favorite. This trick will also work on the frosting if you want to have the same gradient change in color on the outside. Simply replicate the same amount of food gel coloring you used for each layer for each bowl of frosting.

If you don't have a cake plate and cover, once you get your ombre cake decorated, you can also take those wooden toothpicks and stick them around the cake and cover it in plastic wrap so it won't dry out. The toothpicks create a barrier, ensuring you do not have to worry about the plastic wrap clinging to your cake and messing up the frosting.