Vibrantrainbowcake Recipes

EASY RAINBOW CAKE...FROM SCRATCH!

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 325 F.
• Generously grease and flour 6 (9-inch cake pans.) I only had 3 pans so I had to bake in two rounds.
• In a large bowl cream together sugar and butter.
• Mix in eggs until thoroughly incorporated.
• Mix in vanilla extract, buttermilk and heavy cream.
• Mix in half of the flour, baking powder, and salt.
• When mixture is combined, mix in the rest of the flour.
• Divide the batter into six bowls (about 1 cup of batter per bowl)
• Add food coloring to each bowl to create a vibrant red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. (see note on how to make colors)
• Pour each colored batter into the prepared pans and spread out into an even layer. (layers will be thin)
• Bake for 10-15 minutes or until center is set. Do not overbake. Keep a close eye on them as some ovens run hotter and these are thin layers.
• Remove from oven and let cakes cool in the pan until pans are warm enough to touch.
• Run a spatula around the edges of the pans to loosen the cake and then very carefully remove the cakes from the pans.
• Place on a cooling rack and cool completely.
• Meanwhile make the cream cheese frosting by creaming together cream cheese and butter.
• Mix in powdered sugar and vanilla.
• Place the violet layer down first and frost. Followed by the blue layer, green layer, yellow layer, orange layer and finally the red layer. (frost between each layer)
• Place a thin coat of the icing on the cake to create a crumb coat. This will make the cake even all around and seal any loose crumbs.
• Once the crumb coat is set, finish frosting the cake.
• Slice & serve!
• (To create more defined layers of frosting between the colors, place the frosted cake in the fridge to allow the cream cheese frosting to firm up before slicing)

VIBRANT RAINBOW CAKE

Steps:

• Grease two 9" round cake pans with shortening and then lightly flour each. Preheat oven to whatever the cake mix directions calls for.
• Mix cake according to box directions, then seperate into 6 bowls (if doing the full rainbow). Since the first color gets spread the furthest it is a good idea to put slightly more in one bowl and a little less in each subsequently after that so the last color has the least amouont of all.
• Mix in GEL coloring until desired color is achieved. Use a little for pastel colors, and use a bit more for bold and vibrant colors. Take care to put the appropriate color in each bowl if you took the extra step to put a little more in your outside color bowls. The rainbow pattern is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.
• Take the first color (red if you are doing the rainbow, and this will be your outside color) and spoon half into the very middle of each cake pan. You can then lightly tip it around a bit to get the color to spread some, but don't worry about it not reaching the sides, because it will by the time you are done.
• Take your next color and carefully pour it directly into the middle of the first color. Once in you can again tip it a bit to spread it out some, but don't stir it or anything as that will mess up the pattern. Do this with each color until you have used all of them -- by this time your outside colors should be pushed out to the edges.
• Bake as stated on your box, and allow to cool for a couple minutes in the pans before trying to remove them. Carefully tip them out onto a wire rack to cool completely (after a couple minutes I also carefully then flipped them right side up so the bottoms were on the rack since the tops tend to stick to the rack if left for too long).
• Once cool, shave a little off one layer to make a flat surface (this is so the other piece can stack without tipping). You can put some sort of filling in between the layers if you want, but I just left them without for mine. Then frost your cake and top with sprinkles!
• *NOTE* this can also be done in a rectangular dish if you prefer and then you would obviously just pour all of each color at a time, and frost it directly in the pan. It might also be fun to try a splatter type pattern, just taking scoops and dropping them into the pan in a swirl motion (not stirring in the pan) or putting into cupcake form. The person who told me about this also mentioned that you can use 2 cake mixes for the round pans and then just use the leftover batter for extra cupcakes or something, but for my family I didn't need quite so much cake.