Somewhere along the road of deciding what I was going to do for my twin boys 7th birthday I came across a blog post about the most colorful treat I had ever seen. It just exploded on the computer screen… rainbow cake… a 6 layered dream with strips of buttery, sugary deliciousness. I knew I had to convince my war-mongering, lego-smashing, dirt-loving little men. It wasn’t easy. They wanted Star Wars themed confections…but I worked my Jedi mind tricks on them and the Rainbow cake was in our future.
Mind you- I am no baker. Baking is awful. I’d rather go to the dentist. (candy making is a different story-but I’ll save that for a different blog post) So this is the “Looks great, tastes like box cake” method. One reason why it tastes like box cake? Cause it is. But there is a great recipe here if you are a scratch baker- check it out: http://www.marthastewart.com/256688/rainbow-cake
For a cake that can serve 20-25, this is what you’ll need in your cake arsenal. 2 boxes of white cake mix, vanilla extract, 6 small bowls, food coloring, parchment and 9 inch round cake pans.
(Click on the images for a larger view)
Cutting parchment paper into circles that will fit into the 9″ rounds will make the cake super easy to get out of the pan. Look at me, I am using eco-friendly parchment. (I cropped out the stack of paper plates I had in the background so there is no evidence of my paper wasting.)
I mixed the cake mix according to the directions and divided equally – each box I divided into thirds- so I have six bowls of cake batter. Add food coloring to each bowl and mix. Try not to mix too much, just enough to distribute the color.
Now, like I said earlier- I hate baking… so having baking pans isn’t really in my repertoire, let alone 6. I had 2, so I just poured and baked the cakes two at a time. I didn’t time it- since these cakes were considerably thinner, I used the toothpick method to test their doneness. I baked them at 325˚.
I made mine and let them cool, and made buttercream frosting. I made the easy version of buttercream- 3 cups 10x sugar, 1 cup butter, 2 tbsp heavy cream and vanilla to taste. Whip it up and viola! If you are going to frost the cake in the frosting, double that recipe. I planned on using whipped cream, so the single recipe was the perfect amount. I placed the cooled purple cake down on my plate and started layering. Cake, frosting, cake, frosting… you get it.
