Rainbow Cake Practice Round

Since Elena's first birthday party will feature bright, bold colors, I decided a rainbow cake will be perfect for the occasion. I know y'all have seen the rainbow cake images on Pinterest. Like this one:

Via

So cool, right?

Well, I can now confirm that this pretty cake is sooo easy to make!

Last week, my mom and I baked a practice cake. It was super simple, and the cake was beautiful (and tasty, too!).

Here's how we did it:

• Using one box of white cake mix (any brand will do), mix batter in large bowl and then divide  batter into six bowls.
  *TIP* to make sure your layers are even, use six bowls that are exactly the same (cereal bowls work great). Then, use a kitchen scale to weigh the cake mix in each bowl.
• Add food coloring to each bowl to create rainbow colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple).

Pretty colors!

• Coat cake pans with Pam or with butter. 
• Spread mix into cake pans. Layers will be very thin!
• Put your cakes in the oven (just follow the temperature directions on your cake box). We cooked two layers at a time, and determined that 10 minutes was the perfect bake time for such thin layers of cake. 
• After your layers are baked, be sure to let them cool.

The layers turned out great! Very fun and bright!

• Make the icing. This is our family recipe (it is delicious!). With so many layers of cake, we had to make 2.5 batches of icing. Yes, sugar overload. Of course, you can use any icing recipe.

Be sure to let your baby/child lick the blender beaters after you make the icing.
They will love you forever.

• Once cake layers are cool, and your icing is made, begin stacking layers, adding icing in between each layer as you go. (It's really too easy. You don't need my silly directions!)

•  Cut  the cake, and taste the rainbow!!!

Easy, easy, easy!!!

Total time spent: about an hour and a half.

A couple learning experiences:

• The cake layers need to be thicker to handle so much icing. Next time, we'll use one and a half or two boxes of cake mix.
• White cake mix tastes like nothing. It's just cake. Next time, we'll probably add almond extract (or some other delicious flavoring) to make the cake a little tastier.

If you're an over-achiever and want to make your cake batter from scratch, here's a recipe to follow. This recipe also offers a coordinating icing recipe.

Enjoy!