Addilyn had a rainbow-themed birthday...mostly because I wanted to make this cake. It wasn't super hard to make, just time consuming, but it was so pretty that it was well worth the wait.
I started with enough cake batter to make one 8-inch double layer cake. You could double it and get much thicker layers (and therefore a lot more cake) but for our little party, this would be more than enough. I used the white cake recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook but you could just as easily use a cake mix. I divided my batter into six dishes and tinted them (I promise there was six; I just didn't take pictures until my first set was in the oven). Despite the yellow lighting in my kitchen, the colors were really quite pretty. After dividing and tinting came the tedious part. I cut out a circle of parchment to fit in my pans and then greased and floured and parchmented (I may have made up that word) my two pans. I added two colors to their respective pans and baked them. Since these layers were so thin, they took less time to bake so I had to watch them carefully to make sure they didn't burn or overbake. Then I let the cake layers cool in the pans and removed them to cool completely on racks. I repeated this two more times (wash pans, parchment, grease, flour, bake, cool, remove, cool) for my two other sets of colors. If you happen to have 6 pans that are the same size and shape, that would make this much less work. It's doubtful anyone does though, so this tactic works just as well.
After all the layers have baked and cooled come the fun part: assembly and frosting. I used the white frosting recipe from the same Better Homes and Gardens cookbook but, again, you could use the stuff from the can and be just as happy. Look at all those pretty layers all stacked up! This could be another fun and attractive way to serve this cake...with all the layers exposed. So pretty!
Now all the layers are hidden and ready for the surprise upon cutting.
My husband calls this view "Flamboyant PacMan". I love it!
Here it is all cut up and ready for eating. Such pretty colors and such rainbow fun! This idea has been floating around out there for a while so if you haven't tried it already, get going! It is fun for birthdays or whenever your day needs some brightening. Enjoy!
