Want to impress your friends and family? Try making this spectacular Rainbow Cake!
I admit it. I am impressed with myself on this one.
I have been wanting to try making a rainbow cake every since I saw the ones at The Idea Room and I Am Baker, but haven’t had the right impetus to get me going until Walmart challenged me to make something special for St. Patrick’s Day~this cake was the first thing that popped into my mind!
Now a Rainbow cake is more of a technique than an recipe-and although the results are stunning (if I do say so myself-and I do). . . it’s actually very easy to make.
How to Make
a Rainbow Layer Cake
Materials:
2 boxes of White (not yellow!) cake mix (I got Pillsbury at my local Walmart)
3-4 cans of white frosting (Pillsbury at Walmart again. Yeah, I know it’s a lot-it’s a big cake)
All the eggs, oil & water necessary to make the cake mix
Food coloring (Wilton Gel food coloring is the best if your Walmart carries it)
Two 9″ round cakepans
6 bowls or containers
Oil & Flour
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Oil & flour your two pans.
3. Mix up the two white cakes in your electric mixer using the directions on the box.
4. Divide the cake mix evenly into 6 containers or bowls. For me that was about 1 1/3 cups of batter in each bowl.
5. Using your food coloring, dye each bowl a different color. I just added a bit of food coloring & mixed it in by hand with a teaspoon. Remember “Roy G. Biv”. . . Red, Orange, yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo/Violet (I counted those together as purple folks).
Hint: Red + Yellow=Orange, Blue + Yellow=Green, & Blue + Red=Purple
6. Bake your layers. Since I had only two pans I baked the first two colors for 15 minutes (remember-they are much thinner so they bake faster). Then I washed the pans, dried them, re-oiled and floured, baked the second two colors. . . and again until all 6 were baked.
7. Carefully layer the cake in order (remember-Roy G Biv) with a thin layer of frosting between each color.
8. Do a thin crumb coat over the entire cake, refrigerate till that’s hard, then put your final layer of frosting on.
I wanted a “cloud” look to my cake, so I made little peaks all over it with my spatula-just sort of “dabbed” at the cake all over:
Does that look cloud like to you? No? Well work with me here folks. . .
Carefully cut your slices & serve to the amazement of all!
Beautiful!
Does that all seem like too much work to you? Well you could go the more expedient and less frosting-ful (although not quite as visually stunning) route of a marbled rainbow cake like Omnomicon. The marble technique would also work well for school cupcakes.
Enjoy!
Disclosure: This post is part of a campaign I am participating in with the Walmart Moms. Walmart has provided me with compensation and product for this post. My participation is voluntary and opinions, as always are my own. See what my fellow Walmart Moms come up with!
****This is a sponsored post****
Great job Jenn!!! It looks delicious and fun!
Wow, that came out gorgeous! Almost makes me want to attempt a layer cake after the disaster that was my son’s birthday in August. Thanks for sharing.
Oh my goodness! This looks lovely! My daughter will want to do one now.
Awesome cake Jenn!! Thanks for sharing!
~Liz
Ooooohhh, that looks yummy! I added it to my list of fun St Patricks Day party blog posts. Thank you for sharing this tutorial.
What a great idea! My 8 year old daughter would LOVE this…I’m definitely going to plan a father/daughter activity with this…
I just gave this a try today and WOWSER it is 7″tall, but it does look awesome!
Yes, it is a very tall cake. So glad you tried it out 🙂 Your family and friends are going to be so impressed. . .
oooh. I did something similar once though it was only 5 layers and also made each layer a different flavor fruit! Red-strawberry, orange-orange, yellow-lemon, green-kiwi, blue/purple-blueberry. I just used pureed fruit to get the flavoring. I got several compliments from it.
Flavors would be an awesome idea! Did the pureed fruit affect the consistency of the cake batter?
Linked up to you
Love this! Can any of it be done a day ahead? I would like to get a head start on baking and maybe do the decorating on the day of the party. Thanks:)
Kara-Yes, of course it can be done ahead! I frequently find baking a decorating a cake to be a 2 or 3 day process 🙂 Just bake your layers (or even half of them) one day, finish another, frost a 3rd. Whatever works for you! I find that I get the nicest top coat of frosting if I do a “crumb coat” (ie a very thin messy layer-not worrying about crumbs etc), refrigerate it from an hour or two to a day and then frost on top of that “hardened” layer 🙂
I loved this when I saw it!!
Just made this for my son’s 5th Birthday, thanks for the inspiration!
Forgot the link! Sorry http://lifewiththefamilyo.com/?p=3594
Lori~that came out fabulously! Great job!
That looks so delicious! Mmmm 🙂
How would you make cupcakes with this? Or even the “marbled” idea you mentioned? I have to make a couple dozen for a baton twirling competition and I think this would be an awesome idea! Thanks
Stephanie-I’ve basically seen folks just mix the colors & plop it in a pan in big spoonfuls for the sort of marbled look. I did a quick search on Pinterest and found this blog post tutorial for Rainbow Cupcakes where she gives detailed directions. Hope that helps!
Instead of just using food coloring, use flavored Jello, two tablespoons of powder for each layer – you get a rainbow of fruity flavors to go with the colors. I used blue food coloring and watermelon Jello for the blue layer. Yum!
Louise-that’s a great idea as well!
Looks really good and beautyful! I want to bake one!
The cake looks fun and interesting to make but I don’t understand all the instructions. I would need to see a video of someone making it to understand how to make it.
Janet-It’s easier than it seems. Basically you are just baking lots of separate little layers-so you separate out your batter and dye it all the different colors and then bake your layers-if I had enough pans and a big enough oven I could have done them all at once. . . but since I only had two pans I had to do two at a time! When you’ve got all your various colored layers you just stack them together with frosting in between and then frost the outside. Viola!
Ugh!
I am choosing to interpret “ugh!” as “wow, what a lovely cake-I can’t wait to make one myself”. 🙂
critical speaking this rain bow cake is a beautiful cake can i have a piece for the taste test.
On the steps or directions part you by mistake put the number two twice. Just helping you incase you didn’t notice:)
Thanks Emily & Riley-I’ve fixed it now!