An emerging requirement for 5G systems is the ability to provide wireless ultra-reliable communication (URC) services with close-to-full availability for cloud-based applications. Among such applications, a prominent role is expected to be played by mobile cloud computing (MCC), that is, by the offloading of computationally intensive tasks from mobile devices to the cloud. MCC allows battery-limited devices to run sophisticated applications, such as for gaming or for the "tactile" internet. This paper proposes to apply the framework of reliable service composition to the problem of optimal task offloading in MCC over fading channels, with the aim of providing layered, or composable, services at differentiated reliability levels. Inter-layer optimization problems, encompassing offloading decisions and communication resources, are formulated and addressed by means of successive convex approximation methods. The numerical results demonstrate the energy savings that can be obtained by a joint allocation of computing and communication resources, as well as the advantages of layered coding at the physical layer and the impact of channel conditions on the offloading decisions.