Cake: Rainbow Cake

I had never, ever made a cake before, but saw this on another blog and wanted to give it a try. When our church held a Secret Sister get-together, I knew this is what I wanted to contribute. This was the original cake that inspired me: 

 

Ingredients:

For the cake: 

• 2 boxes of white cake mix
• My cake mix called for eggs and vegetable oil too.
• Food coloring
• Cake pan(s)- I used 3 (8 in.) pans. The bigger the pan, the thinner the cake will be. The more pans you have, the more you can bake at one time.

For the icing:

• 4 (8oz) pkgs of cream cheese
• 1 cup of butter
• 5-6 cups of powdered sugar 
• 1 T vanilla (this is what the original recipe said, which I interpreted as "tablespoon", but I think the vanilla was a little strong. You could try a teaspoon or just go with it.)
• Icing bag/tips to decorate cake with

I made chocolate hearts to decorate mine with. I bought white chocolate candy to melt, used my food coloring to color it, poured it in heart molds, and used lollipop sticks. (I bought it all at Michaels)

To make the cake: 

1. Mix up one box of the cake mix, following the directions on the box.
2. Separate the prepared mix into 3 bowls. Mine turned out to be about 1 1/3 cup of batter per bowl.
3.  Add food coloring to batter, red in one bowl, orange in another, and yellow in the third (unless you are doing a different color pallet).

I used Wilton brand food coloring. Keep adding food coloring until you get the desired shade. Red is hard to get dark enough, so I settled with a reddish pink. Your batter will darken a little bit with time.

1. Bake the 3 cakes in round pans according to the box instructions. I put all 3 pans into the oven at once and rotated them every 5 minutes to make sure they baked evenly. They were done after 15 minutes, although they could've maybe baked a little longer. With less mix in the pans, they will cook faster than normal. So check it regularly.

I let the cakes cool and worked on my chocolate mold hearts before mixing the 2nd half, but it's up to you.

By the way, my cakes were VERY moist and I had trouble with them beginning to crumble or sticking to the plates, so cooking them a little longer might be better, but watch carefully.

1. Repeat with the 2nd box of cake mix and the remaining 3 colors (green, blue, purple).

To make the frosting:

1. Mix together softened (room temperature) butter and softened (room temperature) cream cheese until well combined.
2. Add vanilla
3. Slowly add in powdered sugar. After the 5th cup, taste the frosting. Add the 6th cup if you want it sweeter. Otherwise, leave it out. I did use all 6 cups. 

To assemble the cake:

1. Level the tops of each layer of cooled cake with a large bread knife. Mine were pretty level already. Slice into the cakes horizontally so that the centers of the cakes are no longer higher than the edges (something that usually happens to them when they are baked). This is important so that the colors will display evenly when the completed cake is cut and your rainbow will not appear warped. 
2. Begin assembly with first layer (either purple or red, depending on which way you want your rainbow)
3. Set the first layer on your cake stand or plate. Add enough frosting to cover the layer and then spill over the edges. Use a flat, smooth, large knife to spread out frosting.
4. Add the next layer (blue or orange). Put more frosting in the middle spread again and cover top and edges of cake.

I actually did 3 layers at a time because I felt like it was strong enough to support it, and I added a few small dowels to strengthen it, even though the directions don't call for it.

1. Put the cake in the fridge for at least 2 hours or freezer for at least 1 hour. (It keeps the cake from smooshing on itself with the weight of 6 layers.)
2. Repeat assembly with green and yellow layers.
3. Refrigerate
4. Repeat with orange and red layers.

I didn't cover the outside of the layers with frosting before chilling it and found it difficult to spread the frosting without ripping up the cake. I ended up putting a thin layer of frosting on and re-freezing it. So, covering it with icing first might help.

Once the cakes are chilled, assembled (in parts) and frosted, put together all 6 layers:

(Mine without the frosting on the outside)

1. Cover with frosting, using a flat, straight knife to smooth out frosting. (My mom helped me since she's done a lot more cakes than I have.)

My frosting was REALLY soft too, so once I put on the thin layer, I refrigerated it longer and then covered the whole thing again.

1. Decorate with words or other toppings. You can add food coloring to your cream cheese frosting to make dollops around the base of the cake. 

(My finished cake)

It was difficult to cut, but with some practice, you could get a nice, colorful piece. This was also too much for some guests, but it was easy to just give them half instead. 

Enjoy!!! You can do any color combination for baby showers, birthday parties, or holidays. And you can decorate any way you want, even using fondant, toys, or other decorations.

Everyone at our luncheon LOVED the cake. They raved about how delicious and beautiful it was. And, since then,  we've been able to take the same techniques and apply them to different cakes to create a variety of results. '

For the rest of the decorations at the party, we tried to elaborate on the sister theme, emphasizing community and loving one another. I made these girl cut-outs out of foam and pieced them together and also made a paper doll chain. We framed verses about community, used purple and pink tablecloths and decor, and then topped it off using greenery and ribbon to decorate the tables.