Six Layer Rainbow Cake

In my last post, I told you about a Rainbow Cake that I made for Jaycee's 2nd birthday.  We had a lot of fun getting ready for that day.  I had a few themes in mind to do for her birthday, but when it was all said and done, I decided that the best idea for me and the least excitable for Jaycee would be to have a rainbow theme.  I love all the little girl themes that there are out there, but for right now, I kind of want to keep things pretty neutral until we see what kind of girl Jaycee is going to be.  A lot of the ideas that I have seen also would be so much more fun when she is older and can remember things and enjoy it more.

So, here is my post about Jaycee's Rainbow Party.  It was actually pretty easy, just a lot of prep work before hand, but once it was done, I really didn't have to do anything the day of her party.

First we'll start with the cake. 

I used 3 boxes of white cake mix.  Then I used my stand mixer and mixed them thoroughly until everything was nice and smooth.  I did this for about 5-10 minutes.

Then I got 6 bowls and divided the cake batter evenly into each bowl.  You may just have to eyeball this part.  It doesn't have to be exact.  They all end up about the same anyway.

I then used gel paste food coloring and put several drops of each color into each bowl.  Then I stirred vigorously until all the color was mixed in.  I added more food coloring as needed. 

Here is the gel paste food coloring that I got from a place called Cake Stuff.  This is a great place to go if you are making any kind of cake or even decorated cookies.  However, I ran out of red food coloring, and didn't want to drive clear across town, so I stopped by Hobby Lobby which is a lot closer to my house and found that they had it too for a little cheaper. 

These are the bowls after I finished mixing the colors together.  After mixing the colors together, I placed them in 8 inch round pans and baked them as the directions on the box said.  This took a while, but I was able to get lots of other things done while they were baking.  The reason this took a while is because I only had two 8 inch cake pans, and could only do 2 colors at a time. 

Once the first set cooled, I took them out and wrapped them in foil and then stuck them in the freezer so that they would harder before I was ready to frost them.  Then I washed out the pans and started with the next color.  It was a pretty easy process, but you need to make sure that you spray the bottoms of your pans so that the cakes will come out pretty clean.  (Hint:  Here is something the I have found that keeps the cakes really moist.  I take them out about 3-5 minutes before the directions say to and stick them in the freezer fairly quickly so that they hold their moisture.)

Once all the cakes were cooled and had been in the freezer for a few hours, I decided to take on the task of frosting them.  This is where the fun begins.  I first decided which color I wanted on the bottom and them layed it down on my platter or plate.  The cakes were sliced in hald so that there was a little more evenness to them.  After I had the first color done, then I frosted just a thin layer of frosting (you can use any store bought kind that you want or look online for some favorite recipes)  I used store bought and I also mixed a large carton of cool whip with it to make it a little creamier.  I repeated this until I had all the layers stacked together.

Here was what the cake looked like with all the layers stacked together.  Then I started to frost the outside of the cake.  This part gets pretty messy, so be sure to have a rag and paper towels close by. 

Here is the cake after I was finished.  I left it in the fridge overnight and until I was ready to serve it.  I also added skittles to the bottom for a more rainbowish effect.  I didn't do much to the top because I knew we would have candles on it.  For this type of cake you would need to use the long candles. 

Another view of the fabulous rainbow cake.  Behind it are water bottles filled with rainbow Koolaid.  That was fun to do.  Just buy a 24 pack of bottled water.  I had a free coupon for the store so I paid nothing for them.  Then get different flavors of Koolaid that you want and mix it up and pour back into the bottles.  It makes a really cool effect and added so much to the table.

Here I am cutting the cake.  The peices ended up being really big, and we had a lot of leftovers for people to take home.  My neighbor is helping me so that it doesn't fall over.  I realized later that I could have put rods in the middle of it so that it would hold it shape more, but I am not a professional at this.  Something to keep in mind for next time.

About half of the cake was eaten and then sent home with others.  Here was a pretty great picture of all the rainbow of colors.

This was a really fun idea that I wish I could claim as my own, but I got it off of my new found addiction.  There is this site that has just about everything that you can think of on it called Pinterest.  Basically you can use it to keep track of you interests and things that you may want to use or do someday.  This is helpful for me, b/c I usually spend hours writing things down in notebooks only to lose or not remember where I put it.  So to have all of my ideas in one place is great.  My awesome job-share partner got me started on this b/c she was finding some great ideas for classroom projects there and I looked and started my own boards too.  For someone who forgets things unless they are written down, this works great for me.  You can do everything from home stuff to kids to cooking ideas to recipes.  The possibitities are endless.  If you are a crafty or Do It Yourself kind of person, you will love this.

More of my projects are coming soon.  But if you are in need of an idea for a fun party you can definitely try a rainbow party with a Six Layer Rainbow Cake!!!