Thursday, April 7, 2011

Rainbow Cake Tutorial


Here is the tutorial for how I made the rainbow cake. Though it takes a lot of time, it really is an easy project. If you try it out, please tell me how it turned out for you!

Supplies:
2 White cake mixes
Wilton food dye (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)
8 inch round cake pan
frosting

I used this white cake mix.
It needs to be a white mix so the colors come out true. I used two boxes and made them according to the directions on the back. I did one box of mix at a time, though.

After mixing the cake, I divided the batter into 6 bowls. My picture only shows three bowls because I mixed the second cake up while the first was baking.
After dividing the mix, I used Wilton food dye to color each divided mix.
These Wilton food dyes are gel-like so I just used a toothpick to scrape out what I wanted.
I mixed the batter and dye until I came to colors I was happy with.
I have 2 8-inch cake pans so I was able to bake two at a time. I had to watch the cakes closely so they didn't burn. They are much thinner than a regular cake so the times on the back of the box will not work for these. I ended up baking each layer for 15 minutes. I let the cake cool in the pans for another 15 minutes and then turned them out on a cooling rack. Don't forget to butter and flour your cake pans so the cakes come out easily!
I then wrapped the completed layers in cling wrap and froze them. I made the cakes on a Wednesday afternoon and then frosted it on a Friday afternoon. I had read that freezing the cake helped it to not be so crumbly, but I didn't think it really worked that well. Although, I did think freezing it made it easier to work with because it was harder.
When I was ready to frost, I covered a cardboard cake circle with foil and laid my first layer (purple) on it. I used an extra large frosting tip to cover the layer with frosting and then laid the second layer (blue) on top of that. I jiggled the layers back and forth with my hands until they were on there evenly. I was going to cut off the crowns, but decided to do it this way and I'm so glad because it worked just fine.
I continued stacking until all the layers were on in the order of the colors of the rainbow. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.
I then used the same icing tip to cover the outside and tried to smooth it as well as I could. I'm not a baker so I don't really know how to do this to make it as smooth as cakes that you buy.
I then frosted it the way I wanted and it was ready to cut for Chloe Jo's birthday party!
This cake was super fun to make and to eat!
Good luck if you decide to make one of your own!

9 comments:

Anna & Kirby said...

Very fun cake! I'll have to remember this for school or for when we have children! :)

Allison said...

THAT IS SO AMAZINGLY COOL!!!! I'm in awe!! It turned out great, Lisa!

Joeylee said...

thank you for the sweet comment on my blog. love the cake, that looks so cool!

Janet said...

Thank you for posting this!!

devonophotography said...

I love this cake!
So creative!

Anonymous said...

This is AWESOME! I've never ever ever seen a cake this cool. Haha!

Miss Tori said...

Great idea! This would be so fun for kids! I'll have to remember to make this.

devonophotography said...

What kind of frosting did you use for your cake? Getting ready to attempt to make a practice cake for my daughters birthday-Not sure what I should do frosting wise...

Lisa said...

I used Duncan Hines creamy frosting in vanilla. You can use any pre-made frosting or make your own so you can make it as thick or thin as you want.