Rainbow Cake

Thanks to my favorite website ever (Pinterest) I just had to try and make a rainbow cake! You see them in all shades and presented in so many ways that it is hard to choose which would be more fun!  I decided to do a layer cake that turned out to be almost 10 inches high! Heres how I did it!~

2 Boxes of Duncan Hines Cake mix.  Complete recipe as follows on back of box or substitue for a healthier alternitave.

 I started off with 2 boxes of Duncan Hines Classic White cake mix.  I know, I know...cake MIX!!! I have to say that when I took my 1st cake decorating class and the lady told us we would be using boxed cake mix, I turned up my nose with disgust... BUT BOY WAS I WRONG! She explained that box cake mix had come along way from where it started and that for cake decorating purposes it is an extremely light alternative to making a home made cake.  Home made cake has so many delicious ingredients that cakes can weight more than 1/2 than if you were to add your eggs and oil to a box.  In addition there are a TON off different ways to cut calories by substituting your oil with apple sauce or by making a soda box cake.  None the less, homemade cakes do taste fabulous but for a quick fix a box will work just fine.

I then I measured the batter.  Yes this was a tedious step, but with a 4 cup cup measure I measure out my batter and then divided by 6 to determine how much batter should each layer.  

After Portioning out my batter into six cereal bowls I then added my gel food coloring (I prefer Wilton) and stirred away.  Once my six colors were mixed I baked two layer at a time in a buttered and floured pan. 

The cakes don’t take long to cook, being about 1/2 of the size of a normal cake layer (and from a box) so keep your eyes on them!

Now that the cakes are cooled comes the fun part!

Start by spreading a small amount of frosting on the bottom of your plate or cake stand

Then add a 1/2 inch of frosting between each layer making sure the cake is level as you go along.

and continue...

and continue....

annnndddd continue.....

Once you have finished layering the cake, put a large dollop of frost on the top.  With a cake decorating knife, push the mound of frosting to the edges of the cake and work it down the sides.  Do not worry if you have crumbs in the frosting.  This is your crumb coat and will be covered up by more frosting later so make sure you scrape it evenly across the cake to cover up imperfections but try not to leave any thick spots.

Once your cake looks like this, pop her in the refridgerator for about an hour to chill.  Once chilled, take the cake out and put another large dollop of frosting on the top and repeat the previous step until you no longer see any color of the cake showing through.  With a tall glass of boiling water, dip your cake decorators knife into the water, tap off the excess water, then VERY LIGHTLY wisk the knife over the cake.  The hot damp knife will smooth your cake to a beautiful glassy texture.  This will take time so be patient. 

Now with a piping bag and tip, edge your cake with your desired look and add embellishments of your choice. Here I have used a medium star tip to both my edges and my side decorations.  

On top I have added gold dusted sugar crystals for decoration.

TA DA! Now that you are dont with the cake you can either call it good, or make a pretty cake topper!

Here I took 2 wooden skewers and stuck them into each end of the cake.  I then took some pre strung glass beads that I bought at JoAnne's and tied off each end after measuring the distance between my skewers.



To add the letters, I took regular sewing string and tied a loop between every 4th or 5th bead starting from the middle and working my way out.  I then hot glued the letter to the string and then capped the glue with another smaller dot of paper to hide my glue.  I then glued each end of my beaded string to the skewers and repeated for the next string of letters. 



And there you have it! An elegant cream colored cake that holds a fabulous surprise inside! :)

Frosting Recipe

1 1/2 cups of shortening

1/2 cup of butter salted

8 cups confectioners sugar 

8 tablespoons milk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract